Lessons of Mourinho

Early in his career as head coach, Mourinho gave an interview to a Portuguese magazine that had as its main theme leadership, motivation and management of a football team. You can, in the following text, read the thoughts that, one of today's best coaches, had at the time on these issues.

On your opinion what is a leader?

A leader is a person able to gather around him a group of men and that has behavior in such a competent and professional manner that makes all of them to believe that he is the right man to lead them. True leadership is not one imposed, but one that results of admiration that others will have for that person.

And what are the basic requirements to be a leader?

First of all be competence. I think that a great leader is not necessarily a great coach. Technical competence is important because building a team with technical and tactical level is a task very dependent on the qualities of the coach. But then, I think there are other aspects like showing firmness, consistency, I do not say courage because it is not a word I like to use in relation to football, but to be a decision maker. Fundamentally he needs to be an absolutely normal man, with its qualities, with its faults, also accepting the defects and qualities of others.

What is the fundamental point of your leadership strategy?

It is to have a common set of rules that apply to all - all have to follow a certain structure - but at the same time analyze them in the individual point of view. Each has its own personality and I, as a leader, I have to know the players better than anyone else,  so I have to behave differently according to the character of the player A or B. This is critical.

Do you believe it is possible to develop and train the leadership requirements?

I think so. Those will be developed through experience, with maturity. Just the other day I read an interview of Van Gaal, in which he said that what he observed in me as his assistant since the beginning was that I had the ability to analyze the players one by one and create a privileged relationship with all of them. I think this is fundamental to define psychologically the people we work with. Because to motivate a specific player, I cannot motivate all of them in the same way. I think it is important to define the psychological profile of each player.

The people who do not have that leader's profile at birth can develop it?

No. I think it's inside people. I think that it is born with us. What I think you train, and I at least I have this concern, is our public image. When I go to a press conference I know what I'll say. I study it with people who are around me and who are working in this area. We anticipate what kind of questions they will do. I have to define what kind of message I want to pass on. And in that, sure we can train and improve. And even we can send messages to our team that we do not want to send in private talks.

Let's assume that technically coaches are all very good and that therefore all understand a lot about football. So, is the football coach basically a motivator?

I think that is true but the difference is done according to two points. The first one is to understand about training... that not all coaches do, that is, to know how to lead a team to have specific tactical behavior on the field. The other point is the motivation and belief.

The national coach Filipe Scolari, said the success of a player is done by 50 percent by physical preparation, 25 percent for technical and 25 percent by psychology. Do you agree?

I totally disagree. I say that to be successful in a football team the team must be 100 percent prepared. And when I say 100 percent I cannot separate what is physical, what is tactical, what is psychological. For me a player is a whole, he has physical, technical and psychological characteristics that have to be develop as a whole. I cannot separate. I do not make separated physical work and when people says that the FC Porto is very well prepared physically I refute it completely. FC Porto uses a methodology that breaks with all the traditional concepts of analytic training. We train according to a concept we call "Interconnection of all factors," where we work simultaneously all the dimensions, including motivational.

How do you motivate a group?

I think the most important thing is to make them feel as a group and the best way to do it is by all players play. Of course, not everyone can play the same amount of time but I cannot also have two players for the same position and a player plays ten consecutive games and the other does not play. I cannot do that. I have to be strict in the selection of my assets, I have to have players of similar profile, in order to choose one and the other almost interchangeably. I think this is the first factor of motivation. It is to make them feel useful, to make them feel the same importance as others, to feel that the coach also trust in him.

How do you transmit confidence to the players before a very difficult game?

I fundamentally believe in our work quality. I think the concept of team is much more important than the concept of individuality and the best team is not the one with the best players but the one playing as a team.

Being Porto a team that in every game aims to win, the speech of motivation will not repeat itself throughout the season?

I don't think so, because more than the speech there is a training routine, a routine of objectives. And if in our practice sessions there are key points, those are related to the motivational aspect. And I think that  how things need to go. I'm not a much talking coach. I'm not a "group lectures" kind of coach.

Not even in the half-time of the games?

No. I always speak little. I am extremely pragmatic. That's why in the games have a notepad that I only use the first part, to go systematizing my speech at the break. I get to the half-time and I give them three or four minutes in which I don't speak anything. I sit, I observe them talking among themselves, and then have three or four items of tactical order, situations that I analyzed during first half, and one or two situations of motivational order. And that is when I have to give them what I analyzed and that basically  is to check if the motivation levels are high or low, if the confidence levels are high or low, if my players need pressure to increase their performance, if need they reassurance to maintain or increase their levels ... But I'm not a much talking coach.

How do you proceed with the recruitment of the people working with you?

I want people who are very different from me.

When you came to Porto, if you didn't know the assistants who were already working here, would you demand that they were replaced?

No, because also when I went to SL Benfica and UD Leiria I putted as a condition to both administrations that I would accept everyone, because everyone deserves a chance, but with the assurance that those who I evaluated that had no profile to work with me would be replaced. Now of course there are many people working for me, people from different areas of the club, which I think has managed to work within the limits of their capabilities. And they do it for two reasons: first by pressure. I am very organized, very methodical, I define clearly what I want from each one and I think in certain times I intensify this pressure. But on the other hand, I think the atmosphere between us is so good and their satisfaction is so much for working under a strong guideline, they work with high levels of dedication. Even when things go less well.

How do you manage players who begin to be unhappy because they are not  playing and use the newspapers to claim a place in the team?

First they have to realize the concept of team. And that takes time.

And how is the management of those individual successes and failures within the group?

I think we have to be very straight with the players. They have to know what I want from them,  as a player and as a man, and that those who do not fit this profile do not fit in the group. It is simply this. If there is a player who does not accept the rules he leaves.

How do you define the line between discipline and good environment?

At first, when you start working with a new group, these boundaries have to be defined, the rules should be clearly defined. But over time they will be blurring.

So you must be more distant in the early stages?

I feel I am necessarily much more rigorous and more observer than in a later stage. My leadership in the day-to-day was up blurring with time. For example, players know perfectly well that they cannot smoke in public because I do not want. I know there are players who smoke. There are few, very few, but there are players who smoke. And I set this as one of my rules because we have a great social responsibility. So we do not smoke in public.

How do you manage the defeats?

Similarly  to the management of winnings. With balance. I cannot, win a game and in the following week not train or train less, or be less rigorous. And when we lose I cannot say that my methodology is a great bullshit, I do not believe it and I'll change the rules that I had imposed on the players ... I think it all starts before the season starts. Then we have to set a profile for leadership, player, training, tactics, and believe in it. I think fundamentally we have to believe in what we are doing and the players have to believe me.

The signings of your former players at UD Leiria, Nuno Valente, Tiago and Derlei, are due solely to the individual quality of the athletes or you felt the need to have a "contact bridge" within the team?

It is easier. Accelerates the formation and the formation of a team. Primarily at the tactical and psychological level. It helps in building a group with personality. It's good that they know the coach, they know how it works and the kind of behavior that pleases you.

Do you think this label of arrogance that is set on you benefits the team?

I think the team is also arrogant. Because it is an extreme not plying to draw. I think it's an extreme arrogance to go to any field and play like you're playing in our stadium. Go on a bus, get to the Estadio da Luz and have hundreds of people to stone my players and them, instead of lowering on the bus, they laugh out. I think this arrogance on competitive terms is fantastic.

This is part of the psychological force that you pass on to your players?

I think so. For example, I arrived at the Estadio da Luz, the field was full, and the first person who entered was me, I knew perfectly well what could happen to me. And I went there to be first. When my players came they (the fans) were already a little tired of whistling me and sending me oranges, flags, sticks ... So I think my group is exactly what I am. It is arrogant. Professionally arrogant.

How far do you want to go?

When I got the head coach I decided that my goal was to get where I got as assistant coach and to win the titles won. As head coach, in this two years I reached into big club like  to FC Porto, I won an European competition, I won the national championship and what I want is to win more titles. I want to work in big clubs that can bring me pressure, that can bring me responsibility, that can bring me recognition.

And to improve your skills?

Also. I think it's a shame there are no coaching courses for coaches. The courses we have are only for candidates to coaching.

Where do you find such development?

Fundamentally from my practice. In the study of my practice. And I think I have to hold on to my practice of training and theorize it. Reflect on it. If I give you the trainings I did at SL Benfica as a coach and I show you the trainings that I am doing in FC Porto, they are only separated in time by two years but they are completely different, precisely because there was an evolution of what was my methodology. Clearly I try to read, I go to sites of many countries searching for literature, videos, trainings, psychology, management, common literature... I read many things. But most important of all this is to try to theorize my practice.

What is the secret of your success?

I think I am a good coach. And I've had the competence and lucky to have surrounded myself by competent people - assistants, medical staff, players, administration - I believe in competence. And if you ask me if ten years from now I will have the same success, I tell you that believe so. And I believe that to succeed I have to be much better coach than what I am today. It is a fundamental premise for me, tomorrow I have to be better than what I am today.