Few football figures have challenged the transformation of sport and cultural renewal in the 21st century as much as José Mourinho. The Portuguese coach, who has defined a generation and won titles at the highest level for over 20 years, is in a class of his own when it comes to sheer personality combined with a long, long list of successes.
The “Special One”, a title Mourinho called himself when he joined Premier League side Chelsea in 2004 (fresh off an improbable Champions League final victory with Porto) proved to be exactly that in the mid-to-late stages. 2000s, winning back-to-back league titles in west London before arguably reaching the pinnacle of his career, winning the treble of Serie A, Coppa Italia and Champions League with Inter Milan in 2010 .
Mourinho would go on to have more success at Real Madrid, surpassing Pep Guardiola’s almighty Barcelona (the other pillar of top-level management in the new millennium) with a record LaLiga points total. A return to Chelsea resulted in another Premier League title in 2015, while his move to Manchester United earned him three trophies in Mourinho’s first season.
From there, however, the story of “Special One” has gone through a major crisis. Initial success at Old Trafford did not stick, leading to his sacking, and after an equally monotonous 18-month spell at Tottenham Hotspur, Mourinho returned to Italy in 2021 with a move to sleeping Serie A giants, the Rome.
That’s where we and Netflix come in. Mourinho’s departure from the Italian capital in January 2024, despite winning the UEFA Conference League in 2022, coincided with the announcement of a documentary produced by the American streaming giants. Mourinho’s football philosophy and his controversies are well known, so what can Netflix uncover that will take viewers into the mind of one of the sport’s most enigmatic and successful figures?
When is José Mourinho’s documentary released?
Netflix’s new documentary about José Mourinho will air early next year, in January 2025, approximately 12 months after its announcement was leaked to the press – by Mourinho himself!
While the streaming service has yet to release dates or trailers for the documentary series about the Portuguese coach, it is not the first time Mourinho has been the focus of a Netflix production.
The playbook, a five-episode series examining the philosophies of five different coaches around the world, aired in 2020 and is still available to UK-based Netflix subscribers. Mourinho’s 35-minute piece will give viewers an idea of what to expect in the January 2025 documentary, while the miniseries also features interviews with the NBA’s Doc Rivers and former USWNT coach Jill Ellis.
What has José Mourinho said about the new Netflix documentary?
Speaking about the production of Netflix’s deep pe into his silverware-laden career just days before being sacked by Roma on January 16, 2024, Mourinho said; “There are things that will only be known there, they pay me well!
“I hadn’t signed with Roma yet, but I had given my word. A club came and wanted me to break my agreement with Roma, which hadn’t been signed yet, and I said no.
“When the documentary comes out everyone will say that I am a complete idiot. When Portugal arrived, I immediately informed the president. When Saudi Arabia arrived, I immediately told the president. That’s why I don’t think they talk to other coaches behind my back, for me it’s not like that because there is reciprocity.”
What to expect from José Mourinho’s Netflix documentary
Mourinho’s early success in his career is well documented and, frankly, quite phenomenal for a man who began his coaching career as a translator for Bobby Robson at Barcelona, where his former managerial adversary was the lynchpin of the Blaugrana midfield.
Uncovering the secrets of their seemingly unstoppable rise in the 2000s will undoubtedly lay the groundwork for the beginnings of this documentary, which details how trophy after trophy followed both domestically and on the continent at Porto, Chelsea and Inter.
However, since the turn of the decade, success, sadism and controversy have gone hand in hand at Real Madrid and Manchester United, both sides of a similarly up-and-down return to Chelsea in the mid-2010s. It would be extraordinary discover how the dressing rooms of these three huge clubs changed in the blink of an eye, and how the red-hot form established at the height of Mourinho’s tenure quickly cooled.
As a genuine star of Amazon’s deep pe into Spurs in 2019-20, Mourinho’s short time at Tottenham will come under the microscope once again – and all of that before Netflix gets to his time at Roma. Like much of their success over the past 10 years, the Giallorossi shined before quickly fading, and given that the streaming giants were already in the building before their departure from the Stadio Olimpico, perhaps their most recent managerial performance provides the best vision so far. in the mind and machinations of José Mourinho.
