Real Madrid coach Jose Mourinho, the only coach to win European
football's top three leagues, has told CNN in an exclusive interview that his
remarkable track record of success and very public profile has had a
devastating impact on his personal life.
After winning
league titles with Chelsea, Inter, Real as well as Porto in his homeland.
Mourinho says it has got to the stage where even his 12-year-old son is taunted
when he plays a football match.
"I hate my
social life," Mourinho told CNN. "I hate not to be a normal father
who goes with his son to the son's football match and being there with the
other 20 fathers there watching the game.
"I'm at a
football match of kids and I have to be there. The people have to come for
photos; the people have to come for autographs; the people have to come to
insult me; the people have to go behind the goal of my kid and insult my kid of
12."
As well as his uncanny ability to guide teams to trophy after
trophy, Mourinho's very public profile has also been accompanied by an ability
to attract headlines -- sometimes unwanted -- where his media conference
theatrics have journalists drooling over his every utterance.
At times the
Portuguese coach, who is courted by numerous sponsors, has also tarnished his
reputation -- no more so than in last season's altercation with the now
Barcelona manager Tito Vilanova, when Mourinho poked his opponent in the eye.
"I think
it's quite normal because people think they know me, but they don't,"
added Mourinho, who is bidding to become the first coach to win the Champions
League with three different clubs following his triumphs with Porto in 2004 and
Inter Milan in 2010.
"People
know the manager, especially the manager during 90 minutes. And during 90
minutes, I'm not there to have fun.
"Fun is a
consequence. I'm there to do my job, I'm there to win. I'm there with my team
to try to win. I'm there and I live the game, I live the match as if it was the
last match of my career.
"So people
look at me and they see what they see. After that, in press conferences, it's
the other place where people know me.
"In press
conferences, there is still a match to play. Before the match, press conference
is pre-match and after the match, press conference is post-match, but it's a
match."
But Mourinho insisted
he was a very different person one from the portrayed by the media.
"People
don't know me as a friend, as a family man, as a manager inside of my group,
the relationship I have with the people that work in the club.
"So I
don't complain and say people are wrong, people are looking at me with the
wrong eye. No, these people see what they see."
And despite the
cost to his personal life, Mourinho insisted he wanted to be a coach for at
least another two decades.
"So, you
know, I would love to be with my family in the street as a normal person and I
can't, so I am a completely different person in my private life," added
Mourinho, who will turn 50 in January.
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