Lessons from José Mourinho (Part 1)

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.