Check out José Mourinho’s best quotes as Benfica manager: Pointing a gun... | OneFootball

José Mourinho has already been introduced as the new coach of Benfica. However, this is not his first stint at the Estádio da Luz, considering that 25 years ago the Portuguese coach led the Eagles for about two months. Despite his brief tenure with the Reds, the Special One left many iconic phrases to remember.

"Those who are afraid stay at home. Those who don't feel the psychological potential for it spend their entire lives in smaller clubs. Those who feel confident for these battles, in quotes, because for me football is never a war, rub their hands together. Benfica doesn't have ten good players and ten little birds. It has twenty good players," said José Mourinho on the eve of his debut with Benfica against Boavista, also delivering this iconic line on the eve of the match against Braga, on October 1, 2000: "I'm not pointing a gun at anyone, but rather a finger that says, to some, that they haven't yet reached the levels of seriousness in work, concentration, and sacrifice that I expect".

On October 28, before the match against Campomaiorense, the coach spoke about Vilarinho's electoral victory over Vale e Azevedo, the president who had hired him: "I signed a contract with Benfica on September 20 but also signed a moral commitment with the members, intending to dedicate myself 100 percent to this club. I repeat: my commitment is with the Benfica members, with my players, and with the people who are with me".

On November 11, Mourinho reacted to the controversial interview of his player, Sabry, about which he stated the following: "I would have preferred if he had said: I don't like the coach. Everyone can only speak about their own feelings. He doesn't know if I like him or not. But I also say that it's not easy for a coach to like a player who has an absurd average of offsides per game; who doesn't know that when the ball is in the opponent's possession on the opposite side, he has to close the interior space instead of leaving it open; who doesn't know what positional relation and balanced space occupation are; who runs away when shown teeth away from home; who against Halmstads, Belenenses, and Boavista was three times in front of the goalkeeper and didn't score a goal; who at halftime, when I'm a bit more aggressive, goes to complain to the technical secretary saying I'm too aggressive and that he's afraid of me. The only game where he only played twenty minutes was in Paços de Ferreira, where, by the way, he took eight minutes to prepare his boots and shin guards!".

Regarding the lunch, at the time, of António Simões with Toni, José Mourinho responded in his usual manner: "I have lunch with whomever I want and wherever I want and I don't allow anyone to have opinions about it. Following this line of reasoning, Mr. António Simões can do the same and doesn't have to give me explanations about the lunches he might have or had".

In what was the final stretch of his first stint at Benfica, these were Mourinho's words after defeating Sporting 3-0: "They've had time to know whether they like my work or not. Another year of contract or I'm leaving because I already have another club". After this victory, he would terminate his contract with Benfica, to which he reacted as follows: "This is a very sad day because we are ending our contractual relationship with Benfica. When we arrived here, we set two main goals. The first was for the football team to become better than it was when we accepted the coaching position, and fortunately, that goal was achieved. The second was to gain more space and time to think about competing for the title... Unfortunately, our relationship has come to an end, and we cannot complete that goal".

Check out one of José Mourinho's interventions during his first stint at Benfica:

This article was translated into English by Artificial Intelligence. You can read the original version in 🇵🇹 here.