Mourinho: Will you be tired of me if I keep on into my 70s?
JOSE MOURINHO famously spent huge chunks of the behindthe-scenes Amazon documentary at Tottenham telling his team that they needed to develop a winner’s cutting edge. In short he wanted them to be a ‘bunch of *****’.
It wasn’t the most delicate way of putting it but, a year on, Mourinho is seeing signs that his team are being moulded into his image.
‘We’ re improving as a team, that is not in doubt,’ he said. ‘The concept of what the team needs and the type of mentality we need in the team, which is something I have been very, very clear about, we are improving step-by-step.’
While grumpy Jose seemed to be adopting the persona he used as manager of Manchester United, which of course was characterised by disharmony, the three- time Premier League winner appears happier and more relaxed than at any time in the last decade at Tottenham.
Mourinho was even willing to contemplate emulating today’s managerial opponent Roy Hodgson and coaching until the age of 73 in the run up to the clash against Crystal Palace at Selhurst Park.
‘I see it, yes,’ he said, when asked whether he could imagine coaching into his 70s. ‘But who knows? Maybe you are tired of me because I’ve been here for 20 years now, since 2000 when I got my first job. ‘But the reality is that at the age of 57, for the job, for the nature of the job, I’m very young. ‘A big friend of mine this week got a job in the Portuguese Premier League at the age of 74 [Jesualdo Ferreira at Boavista], a fantastic coach, incredible knowledge, incredible passion. ‘I spoke to him and he told me that everything is very stable — his family, his kids. ‘His kids are not kids anymore, of course. And he still wants to work, so let’ s see what happens.’ Moody Mourinho appears to have mellowed and is no longer taking on all-comers. Despite pundits labelling last weekend’s 2-0 win over Arsenal as a smash-and-grab counter-attack one, Mourinho, who spent time after losing the United job as a pundit on Sky Sports, was unwilling to take issue with them on their views.
He said: ‘I’m not going to be the pundit of the pundit. I’m not going to comment on what they said. They are professional.
‘ Yes, I was a pundit but not a professional. I was a pundit in my free time as a manager when I didn’t have a job.
‘It was something I enjoyed and something t hat helped me to respect other people’s opinions, so I am not going to comment on that,’ he said.