Jose Mourinho critically reflects on Roma tenure: “I hated to be the face of the club.” | OneFootball

Former Roma manager Jose Mourinho spoke to The Telegraph about his time in the Italian capital.

In a lengthy interview with the English newspaper, the Special One was critical of Roma’s demands on him, especially the club’s tendency to rely on his image on and off the pitch including in the aftermath of the controversial Europa League final in Budapest.

“It is not like I am afraid of jobs [with clubs] not ‘made to win it’. When some [managers] have reached a certain level maybe they say, ‘I will only get jobs made to win it’. It is my job to try to make clubs into those ‘made to win it’, or to reach some objectives.”

“My dream job description – because sometimes you have a job title and another thing is the job description – is ‘head coach’. That’s my dream. To be the coach. To be the guy who works with the team, focus on developing players, preparing matches.”

“Fortunately, I had that in my career. Unfortunately, I had other situations when I had to be much more than that. When you are much more than that you are not as good a coach as you can be. The club puts you in a position where I don’t want to be.”

“Do you think after the Europa League final that we lost, in the circumstances that we lost, I was happy with all the emotion that I felt? Do you think I was happy to be the face of the club that went to the press conference to speak about these events? No, I hated to go.”

“My future? Give me a professional structure where I am only the head coach because this is what I am good at. People say I’m good at communication. Many, many times you say the wrong things. Especially when you communicate three or four times a week. A club’s structure pushes me in the wrong direction.”