“If I had stayed at home, I would have earned more money than working at Benfica”

José Mourinho arrives on the finish of his first season at Benfica on the verge of a return to Actual Madrid with a really clear message about cash and his profession priorities.

The Portuguese coach left in public months in the past an concept that now takes on a brand new that means: “If I had stayed at house, I might have earned more cash than working at Benfica.”

That phrase was not born within the midst of a storm over his future, however within the early phases of his time in Lisbon. On the finish of September, with the season having simply began and noise rising round his contract, Mourinho appeared earlier than a League match in opposition to Rio Ave and determined to nip the hypothesis within the bud.

When requested about his wage figures, he responded bluntly and raised his tone to underline his place. “If I stayed at house till June I might earn greater than working at Benfica (…). You may’t even say that I am right here without cost, I am right here in a unfavourable method,” the coach then launched.

At the moment, the context was very completely different from at present. Mourinho had simply assumed the bench of the membership that opened the doorways to him as an expert coach, after a loud departure from Fenerbahçe and with a pending compensation that he would proceed to obtain if he took a sabbatical 12 months.

That’s the reason he insisted that his resolution to say sure to Benfica meant a direct monetary loss and that his alternative had extra to do with the necessity to compete on the highest stage once more than with the scale of the contract.

The press convention, designed to speak about soccer, turned a sort of private manifesto. Mourinho defined that he agreed to cut back his revenue to regain sensations, expertise the stress for titles once more and rediscover an setting that he has identified since his beginnings.

The phrase about “being unfavourable” functioned as an ironic response to the leaks that pointed to an exorbitant wage and, on the identical time, as a technique to align himself with the gang: he offered himself as somebody prepared to lose cash in trade for the problem.

Months later, with the season already closed and Mourinho’s title on the heart of the European board, these phrases are learn in another way.

The coach who then claimed that he would have earned more “staying at home” is one step away from signing one of the most coveted benches in the world.

But the story that he himself constructed upon landing at Benfica remains the same: the decision to return to the elite was not a question of zeroes, but of competitive ambition and professional pride.