Totally Extra: How special were Mourinho’s Porto?

0:00Do you want to find a stress-free way to buy your next car? Start at CarMax and shop your way. If you want to browse with confidence, get pre-qualified online with no impact on your credit score and shop cars within your budget. From luxury cars to family rides, CarMax has options for almost every price range, including more than 25 ,000 cars priced under$25 ,000. So, hey, want to get started? Just head to CarMax.com for details and get pre-qualified today. Want to drive? CarMax.

1:02My name is Shannon Maldonado. I'm the founder of Yaoi, a gift shop from the lens of artists and handmade objects. I chose Shopify because when I was testing other platforms, it was definitely one of the most user friendly. It was important to me to think about where we would be in the future. All of the tools for reading your sales, like planning inventory, are just right there on your dashboard. For anyone starting a small business, the biggest thing I can tell you is it doesn't have to be perfect. Shopify can help you build upon it. Start your free trial on Shopify.com.

1:58side and whatever happened to that bonnet young fellow they used to call their manager those questions and much much more in this totally extra

2:16well listener thank you so much for being with us on what for us is a tuesday afternoon you might be listening to this on saturday the 13th of september or thereafter after. I'm going to let you know that us today is Duncan Alexander. Hello. Hi Duncan. Michael Cox with us again. Hi James. Hello to you. A very special guest star today. You know him as the award ceremony stroke cup draw go-to guy. He is Pedro Pinto. Pedro. Hola James. Hola to you Pedro. Thank you so much for being with us. It's fantastic. It's been a while since actually We recorded something together. So I'm really glad that you've had me back now.

3:00Well, you need to work. Let's be frank. This is the fifth of our Totally Extra shows. We've had one on Balotelli, one on that Klinsman fellow, one on Nicola Anelka, and then a very exciting one on Colombia last time out. If you haven't listened to them, maybe go back and check them out. But this one, I think it's going to be extra exciting. I call it It Had To Be Moo. as we do a Porto Reporto, a team that transformed football. Is that right?

3:28Michael Cox: They certainly transformed the record books of the Champions League in the early 2000s, yeah. And managerially, the whole kind of vista. I think a lot of people would argue there's a before Porto 2004 and very much after. Paul writes in and says, as we're on the topic of Portugal, what's your favourite Portuguese food? I'm going to throw this one to you, Pedro. My favorite Portuguese food, I will say, I'll go for something really typical. It's bacalhau com natoche. So it's cotton cream. Love it. That sounds good. Michael, you had a very happy sejoon in, actually it was near Oporto, wasn't it? Which involved large sandwiches.

4:09Michael Cox: Is that the one that has loads of sauce over the top of it? Yeah, the francesinha. Is that what it's called, Pedro? I was forced to read that by Jack Lang, who's a Portuguese-speaking colleague who insisted this was a dish I had to have. I must say it was, to be honest, it just felt too English to enjoy. It was just a lot of stuff. There was sauce, there was meat, there was cheese, there was chips, there was everything. It felt like I was in an English cafe. I'm not a big fan. And for me, it's a bomb for my stomach. You can cue the acid rising like a quarter into the Francazinha. So I stay away from them, but there are people who love them.

4:53I see. Jack Lang amongst them. It's become a bit of a thing, Pedro, to talk about food before we talk about football. So let me ask you, in contrast, you're currently living in Lisbon. What a magnificent city that is. If we're all coming around to dinner, where are you going to take us out to? What would be your restaurant of choice? Wow. There are so many. I think it really depends. I mean, I love grilled fish. So I'd probably take you to one of the typical grilled fish places in Qashqai, actually, where I live close to. And you just can't go wrong there. For me, I love something which is the sea bass and salt.

5:34I mean, they have it in Greece. They have it in Spain, I think, as well. But I love it when they bake the sea bass and salt. and it's just so moist and phenomenal. So I'll probably take you, do you want like names of places? Yeah. Sure. Okay, so I love Montemar. They have a place in Lisbon close to the station and in Cascade as well. Then more typical in the center of the city are of Pinocchio, as in the wooden figure with the nose that grows. And what else would I say? I think something a little bit more upscale, Chis Chiselle, which is run by one of the top chefs in Lisbon that's a good friend of mine.

6:18I think those are good recommendations. Excellent. Well, listener, it wouldn't be a totally extra if we didn't A, talk about food, and B, get a quiz question to start us off. So, Duncan, are you going to do the honours again this week?

6:33Michael Cox: I certainly am, yeah. I mean, as we know, we're talking about Jose Mourinho and his pomp in the 2000s. The question this week is, only two players have scored for more than one team in the Champions League under Jose Mourinho. Who are they? Only two players? Two players in the Champions League for Mourinho teams. Scored two different clubs. Two different Mourinho clubs. So who are those two players? All right. We won't reveal the answer just now, even if you know it, Pedro, but do you know it? I don't know it. I could take a stab at it but I don't know if we've reached that part of the show yet You can have one stab if you like Yeah, I'll go with a guy who didn't score too many goals but he did play for three Mourinho sides in the Champions League I believe, so I'll go for Ricardo Carvalho Duncan That is one of the correct answers Well done, Pedro I expect John Terry to pop up and Carvalho the other centre-back knocks Chelsea into a 2-0 lead.

7:36They are making easy meet of Anderle. Michael, you're looking very calm there. Is that because you already know who the other one is? No, that was not me looking calm. That was me looking annoyed because that's the one I'd just written down. So I think about the other one for the rest of the show, I guess. You have a think about it too, listener. Lord knows you'll need something to do as we roll on next into our almanac section.

8:04Broadly speaking, it's the second week of September. On this week, or in and around this time in football history, the first ever Football League matches were played in 1888. Five of them in total. A cumulative crowd of 25 ,000 people turned up to watch, which was a record at the time. So, yeah, football.

8:29Michael Cox: Good day, that. So early in league football that they hadn't invented points. so when they listed the table they did it alphabetically and someone said we really should work out a way of like showing who's doing well so they invented the concept of points how why did they even show a table if it didn't have any points well they showed like you know Accrington uh one win one you know zero defense or whatever the schools were all right but then someone thought there's got to be a better way of demonstrating this exciting new tabulated football information. Also notable from that day is that Stoke lost 2-0 and they've never been in a positive goal difference cumulatively ever since.

9:10Michael Cox: They might get better. They got close in the 1980s but then fell away again. That's extraordinary. Can you imagine trudging off the pitch that day? They would have said, never mind, lads. That's always next week. And here we are. Yes, also this week in football history The great Bobby Moore made his senior debut That was in 1958 MUTV began broadcasting in 1998 The world's first TV channel Dedicated to a single football club And it's still going Have you ever watched MUTV, Pedro? No, not really Even when I live in the UK I'm not big into club channels I see To be honest with you Okay It's just too one-dimensional I mean, unless you're mad about that club, I don't get watching a club TV channel all the time.

10:01Michael Cox: It's not a great watch, I'll be honest. You're not a Man United fan. You're not really the target audience, Duncan. Its most famous moment is the one that almost none of us have seen, which is back in 2005 when Roy Keane supposedly took his teammates to task and was subsequently invited to leave by Sir Alex Ferguson. In 1974, it was this week which saw Leeds sack Brian Clough after only 44 days in charge. 44 days which had begun with him telling the players to throw their medals in the bin because they'd won them all through cheating. Brian, what's your reaction to being booted out in this fashion?

10:37Oh, it's a very sad reaction. Obviously, to be sacked, as you profoundly put it, and the only way you could put it, is a very sad one. It's a very sad one for me personally. And I also believe a very sad one from Leeds Football Club's angle and from the Leeds City. An appropriate figure perhaps to conclude our almanac on, given his role as a kind of managerial maverick, and the man we're going to be talking about a lot today, Jose Mourinho. His remarkable career, perhaps the most remarkable bit of all therein, his couple of years with Porto.

11:17We will be champions of the match. Now, now, now.

11:47is that funniest incident, well it wasn't too funny because we were behind at the time 3-2 he went down, he went down as if you know the sudden a mysterious gust of wind is blowing somewhere and down he goes It's McCarthy, it's a good save by Howard, it's been turned in by Costinha Last minute and it could be the last minute of Manchester United's European season Great reaction by Jose Mourinho Oh, it's just a day even to do it. I mean, they do. I don't think it's fair. It's not true that the Portuguese player is an actor. So what is the problem? A cultural problem? A result problem, I think. Whoa!

12:33Hey, go, go! Go for the Matico Arena! Whoa! That good! Walter, 3-0 winners against Matico. and they are the European champions. Jose Mourinho has masterminded this success.

12:59Kids, you won't believe this, but just as there was a time when the internet, mobile phones, and Jenga didn't exist, so too there was a world not too long ago when no one had heard of Jose Mourinho. Now, if I speak no special one, none of that. Of course, in our world, Mourinho was like a bomb that went off in football management in the early noughties. And ground zero for that were his two incredible seasons at Porto. A team of kids, coached by a kid in Jose's own words, who rocketed to the top of the Portuguese Liga, won two straight national titles, won a Portuguese Cup, won a UEFA Cup, the Europa League these days, and won the Champions League.

13:43It's an incredible haul that in such a short space of time, just two seasons, but even more so with that team. Michael, were they the kind of team that should have been picking up that many honours? I think they were a very good team. I think it's easy to look back at 2003-04 and look at the sides they beat to get to the final and say there wasn't much competition. But I actually felt that season there were a lot of very strong teams in Europe. It was a season when Arsenal went unbeaten. And it was a season that Milan, I think, lost only one game on the way to winning Serie A. I think it was a fantastic Champions League campaign, actually.

14:17Lots of standout moments. I think it was quite interesting. It was the first season after the second group stage had been abolished, which a lot of people found very tedious. And I think it kind of opened up the way for some outsiders. And Porto and Monaco in the final was, you have to say, in the Champions League era, probably the most unlikely final. But yeah, I mean, it wasn't a team of stars. We didn't really know many of the players, certainly before the UEFA Cup run the previous year. But not only did Mourinho create a fantastic team, he also created or developed a number of players who I think went on to be regarded as amongst the best in the world.

14:54Deco being the best example. And Pedro mentioned Riccardo Carvalho was a tremendous centre-back who had great success at Chelsea. So it was an extraordinary achievement, I think, both in assembling such a good group of players and in getting the best out of them as a unit. Paulo Ferreira, Ricardo Carvalho and Deco went on to big things. Most of the other players, maybe not so much. Pedro, it was a very Portuguese side. Very. And I think one of the most underrated guys in that team as well was definitely Manish, who you were talking about some players who went on to bigger things in other area codes and Manish I think never really lived up to expectations once he left Portugal and he had a move to Dinamo Moscow that was really ill-advised I would say along with Derley who was another one of those stars from that side but definitely especially at the back you know with Vitor Baye in goal and the back four from you was phenomenal back then I mean Ricardo Carvalho not because he's Portuguese but I put him in one of the top three or four central defenders I've ever watched live and you had you know the the late Josh Costa who of course passed away recently he was one of the meanest nastiest you know center backs uh that that that I recall and then you have Paul Fogera on the right who's so hard working I mean you guys know him as well as I do because you watched him for so many years in the Premier League.

16:28And Nuno, Valente, who you also had in the Premier League, but maybe not at the level that he certainly had for Porto and for Portugal. I genuinely think that it was an example of what a Portuguese team could do at a time when perhaps they didn't have to sell as much as they have to sell now to survive. because, I mean, just to make a quick comparison off the top of my head, just imagine if Benfica didn't have to sell, you know, some of the guys so early like they did, whether that's, you know, Ruben Dias or Bernardo Silva or Renato Sanches, who was actually good early in his career, or João Felix, you know, you could see a team like that maybe make the latter stages of a Champions League, I would say, but definitely very Portuguese back then.

17:21And that was really the backbone of the side who obviously reached the final of Euro 2004 and the semifinal of the 2006 World Cup. Nuno Espirito Santo was in that squad as well. I think he still was, yeah. He never really played much at Porto, you know, because Vitor was so important, not just as a quality goalkeeper, but as a leader in the dressing room. but he certainly already had a good impact as well with the group with Porto and with Mourinho who obviously as we know pays so much attention to what players can bring more than just what goals they score or what assists they give or what tackles they make you know the emotional side of that Porto culture was already really prevalent with Jose back then Well if they didn't have many superstar players they certainly had what turned out to be the superstar manager although he wasn't himself very well known to the wider footballing world when he was first appointed as Porto's manager midway through the 2001-2002 season.

18:28Jose had an unprecedented career path certainly then and still pretty much to these days after beginning his coaching career as a translator for Sir Bobby Robson and then an assistant and following on from Sir Bobby Luis Valjar in the Catalan capital. He then moved to Benfica. And this could very much have been the Benfica story if they'd had a little bit more faith in him. You know, I don't know if the question is for me, or the comment is for me, but I'll take it quickly. It's crazy because back then, there were presidential elections at Benfica. And the guy who won those presidential elections had already made a deal with a different manager.

19:12Mourinho at this point obviously was very unknown. He wasn't really a factor. He wasn't someone who would have swayed the members of the club to vote for another candidate to keep someone like Mourinho. So destiny works in mysterious ways. And it was definitely the start of an era of unprecedented modern success for Porto to get Jose in there and win in the way they won and perform in the way they performed throughout those two and a bit seasons. It was crazy because I don't know if you remember, obviously you know about the first Chelsea press conference, but when he took over at Porto, I remember very clearly, and Porto were in crisis back then, where he said, this season I may not be able to do much because he picked up the team they were already pretty much out of the title race, but he said, I can guarantee we'll be champions next year.

20:10And they were champions next year, and they dominated Portuguese football in that 20-203 season. And, yeah, it was definitely one of those sliding door moments, I think, for Benfica and Porto, having Mourinho and letting them go.

20:36Yeah, bold stuff from Jose. And everything he promised came true, as was wont to be the case back then, the following season, having finished that first half a campaign with a 15-match unbeaten run to get them up to third place and crucially into the UEFA Cup, as the Europa League used to be known. The following season, Porto under Mourinho win the treble. They finish 11 points clear in the league. They win the Portuguese Cup against his old side, União de Leria, and they win the UEFA Cup against Celtic. Jose Mourinho's side, hold on. And they win the UEFA Cup. What was the reaction in Portugal at this point to this brash young man who was shaking things up, not just domestically, but right across the continent?

21:23I think it was very split, as most things are here in Portugal, where he was already loved, I would even say adored at this point, when he won the UEFA Cup up north. And in Lisbon, people were very frustrated, especially in Vienfica, because they let him go. But sporting as well. I mean, we here in Lisbon, and when I say we, it's the football fans who are based here in Lisbon, domestically didn't find it too great because we could tell that there was a dynasty being built up at Stade do Dragão. I think internationally, at least from my perspective, regardless of what club you may support, I think you should also always support your team, your Portuguese teams in this case, especially being from a small country, not winning much, generally supporting your country's teams in European competition.

22:18So, I mean, I love the fact that he won the UEFA Cup in that season against Celtic in the final. And I thought it was fantastic. There were so many Portuguese players in that team as well. but domestically I can guarantee you that it was very much you know either you were with him and you were a Porto fan or you were against him which was most of the country domestically. Michael one of the surprising things about that first full season under Jose was that they were actually a really exciting side. Yeah I mean I would argue they were quite an exciting side throughout his his time in charge with Porto I think it's easy to to look back at the Mourinho of later years, particularly when he was up against Pep Guardiola, who obviously favoured a more positive possession-based style.

23:04But in the context of the mid-2000s Champions League, I mean, you look at the Milan side who won it the year before, the Liverpool side who won it the year after. I don't think Porto were any more defensive than those teams. I think they were pragmatic. I think that what they were probably as good as any side I can remember is they picked their moments when to attack. When they attacked, they went for it. And they produced some fantastic performances. I remember watching the game against Lyon in the quarterfinals that season. And again, Lyon, you can look back and say they're not one of Europe's giants.

23:36But this was a team who were midway through winning seven Ligue 1s on the bounce. And when Porto went for it, they pushed forward the fullbacks. Deco was an absolutely inspirational playmaker at a time when maybe there weren't so many of those around. You know, maybe the legends of the previous era were just coming to a close and Deco was seen as someone who was ultra creative, but also very hardworking, very energetic, you know, really connected the side. I always quite like the fact, James, you mentioned it was a very Portuguese side. The thing I quite liked about that team was they often played with Portuguese goalkeeper, Portuguese back four, three, you know, central midfielders who were Portuguese.

24:13then you had two Brazilians up front and Deco was the kind of link who was a Brazilian who became Portuguese obviously midway through this and actually made his debut against Brazil scored on his debut against his homeland but yeah I've got very good memories of watching them they pulled off some fantastic results again you know Deportivo in the semifinals this was a point where I think Deportivo and Valencia were harder places to go than Real Madrid and Barcelona you know Real Madrid and Barcelona were grand clubs but they were open they often really poor defensively they often had crazy seasons where they finished sixth in the league or something Deportivo the reasal was considered you know one of the hardest places to go certainly in Western Europe and that performance they produced to win I think 1-0 in the semi-final was was great um and then yeah in the final was a good example of they had a 20-minute burst scored just before half time then they had a great burst after the half time and uh and we're out of sight and yeah at times they defended deep um at times they killed the game but uh yeah again for me in the context of mid-2000s football i don't think they were any more defensive than than the other top teams and certainly the year before in that uefa cup run they had a 6-2 aggregate win in warsaw against polonia warsaw 6-1 against denis the sport i remember watching them in the you what the then uefa cup semi-final against Lazio and still a proper Lazio side you had Peruzzi, Stankovic, Diego Simeone, Chiesa in there, Claudio Lopez up front and Porto were just dazzling they blew them away 4-1 in the first leg and that was job done.

25:50Duncan.

25:51Michael Cox: Yeah and I think that UEFA Cup campaign from a sort of UK point of view was important as well because the final was against Celtic and you know although not everyone in the UK supports Celtic it was it made that final something that I think a lot of people watch. I was out in London that night and pubs were packed with people watching it. And obviously it ended in, you know, I think it coloured people's view of Mourinho and that Porto team here at least. Because, you know, Marcel O 'Neill was particularly vociferous about some of the time wasting. It was difficult because you had the likes of Deco and Manish who we've just seen.

26:25And actually the goalkeeper, Victor Baia, who was just incredible, absolutely incredible. in extra time in the game, the funniest incident, well it wasn't too funny because we were behind at the time 3-2, but he went down, he went down as if there was a sudden, a mysterious gust of wind has blown somewhere, and down he goes. And the next thing, I actually thought that the authorities in Seville were going to evacuate the stadium and airlift him to the nearest Royal Infirmary because he stays down. And by the time, honestly, by the time that he actually, the four doctors who had come onto the field, I'm going to tell you this story so you can finish.

27:02We're not in the bar afterwards now. We're on air. But anyway, you carry on. Yeah. Quickly. By the time the four doctors come on and realised that the broken fingernail would be all right, he had wasted four and a half minutes. He's not bitter, though.

27:15Michael Cox: What I think is important about that is that, obviously, the following season in the Champions League, they played Manchester United. And that was the game that sort of elevated Mourinho to sort of superstar status. But I think people already had a sort of knowledge of him going into that game. and people were sort of primed, if you like, for him to do something memorable. Obviously, with the celebration in the last minute running down the touchline, Old Trafford being the peak of that. But I think it was almost like we were ready for another sort of alpha manager and to do it against the sort of alpha manager of European football at that time in Alex Ferguson.

27:48Michael Cox: If you look around at the other, you know, Arsene Wenger, brilliant manager, but not really an alpha sort of figure. You know, Chelsea at that time had Ranieri, sort of similar. and there was a real sort of, I think almost like a hunger and a desire for Mourinho to come to the Premier League that following season and kind of take on Ferguson, if you like. And that game was sort of the first act in what would become, for a few years, pretty much a comprehensive Mourinho masterclass. So much interest around that game. For Celtic, who brought an estimated 80 ,000 fans to Seville for the match, supposedly 1 % of the entire world's air traffic was heading to Seville on the morning of the match.

28:34Apocryphal, perhaps, but it certainly gives an idea. The game didn't go the way Celtic wanted, but it was a pretty amazing game. Pedro Jose calls it. I know Martin O 'Neill has a different view of how that match played out, But Josio calls it the most exciting football match he's ever been involved in. It was really exciting, not just because of the flow of the goals scored, but I think the atmosphere was just incredible. I mean, obviously, the Porto supporters were incredibly outnumbered. The heat was really intense. I wasn't there physically. I was watching it on TV at the time. And I was actually living in Portugal at the time.

29:16It was one of those games where it felt completely unscripted, like anything could happen at any moment until the last whistle. That was, I completely agree, it was the coming of age of José as a manager, as proving he had what it took to win something big with a group of incredibly talented players, but that were also in an early stage of their respective careers. we haven't talked too much about Deco yet and I'm sure we will but I think he was one of these players that also rose from the ranks in the clubs where he played here in Portugal kind of arrived at Porto a little bit unknown coming from a small site called Alverque in the outskirts of Lisbon and he became one of the best attacking midfielders of his generation and he was so I think the But one of the big reasons for Porto's success during that season and the next season was that kind of triangle.

30:20Of course, Tinha Manish, Deku. And there was another player in there because they played a diamond. Mostly, and obviously, Deku was at the top of that diamond. And whether that was Pedro Mendes or whether that was Alenicev or whether that was someone else who slotted in, those three players were really at the center of everything that they created. and to a large extent how they controlled the game as well in midfield. Because Costinha, and I actually since become quite close with Costinha and worked on a lot of shows together, Champions League shows, as a pundit when he was a pundit on the show.

30:56We talked a lot about those years. And I think Costinha, when I was a fan earlier, or when I was a journalist earlier, and when I watched Porto to Play or when I watched Portugal play, I didn't appreciate many times the impact that Kostinha had more as like a balance in making sure that he was covering the space that Manish was leaving behind when he went on his forward forays or when Deku was playing many times close to the box and he would push up. But all of this to say that that particular game then obviously set the stage for what happened the season after. It was a moment which also made Portuguese players believe that they could win a competition internationally.

31:45It doesn't happen that often. Here, as you know, the last time Porto had won, Champions League was 87, but Portuguese teams historically have not had too many European titles. And having this happen in this generation of players when they were still so young, I think then set the stage for them excelling as a team in Champions League the following season and then at some of the biggest clubs in the world. Supposedly, the grudge about how that game played out in Seville that night is still born in Glasgow, particularly Kieran Devlin with a piece recently about that match in which he tells the story of Costinha Manish taking a taxi and the taxi driver hearing that they're from Portugal and saying, I remember I was in Seville, we lost the game to those bastards from Porto and Costinho says to Mourinho, don't say anything because he'll throw us out of the car.

32:36But it's incredibly reductive, whatever issues you might have had that night, to look at what Mourinho had done with that team and put it down to dark arts because some extraordinary tactical alchemy had gone on. This was a side containing Helder Voschiga and Oké Deco, but as we mentioned, they weren't a star-studded team. Not only did they conquer the Europa League, But next season, they went on to achieve the biggest Champions League final victory at that point ever.

33:04Michael Cox: Yeah, they had that sort of bittersweet thing you get with certain teams in European competition that Ajax had in the mid-90s where you're enjoying them, but you're also aware that, you know, many will be circling around, taking notes and opening checkbooks. So, yeah, it just felt like a very specific moment in time and one of those times in football where a group of players and an up-and-coming manager kind of coincide and create something really special for a brief moment. Second half of the brief moment, we've touched on it, was the Champions League campaign. And if the first four-season under Josie had been remarkable, the second season went even better, the Dragons retaining their league title with a 100 % home record.

33:50And in Europe, then pulling off the Champions League greatest underdog win. Let's get on to 2003-04 next.

34:15aligned. Olivia, our human creative director, stayed in the loop because agents are great, but they don't always know when a joke lands. She had one note, tell listeners it only takes minutes to build an agent. So minutes, create your own AI agent today on monday.com.

34:36You're listening to the Totally Football Show with James Richardson. Now we do four times a week. Keep up to date with us on Insta and enjoy us in glorious Technicolor on YouTube at The Totally Show. Gazzareldo says not exclusively about that era of Jose's career, but I don't think enough is made of his incredible unbeaten home record, which started at Porto and then ran across several clubs for an incredible, almost exactly nine years, from 22nd of February 2002 to the 19th of February 2011. Will this ever be eclipsed, asked Gazzareldo, and then answers, no, no, it won't.

35:12Michael Cox: Yeah, he's right. There you go. So, well, that Champions League campaign then, while Porto were achieving this incredible run in the Liga, in the Champions League, they were put in a tough group with, amongst others, Real Madrid, and they got off to a pretty rubbish start. After the first two games, they'd been held to a 1-1 draw against Partizan Balgray. They then got beaten 3-1 at home. This is just before the Dragao had been inaugurated, Pedro, although you might correct me on that. A 3-1 defeat at home to Real Madrid. at that point, nobody thought that the winds of history were blowing them forward.

35:46I don't remember if it was before or after. I want to say before. I think you're right. And I agree at that point that there was not many people in Europe, maybe only in the Porto dressing room, where they thought they could do something special that season, like they went on to do a few months later. Well, they rebounded with a victory over Marseille, a home win against Paris Saint-Belgray, and then a respectable 1-1 draw at the Burner Bear, which put them into the last 16 where there was that Manchester United game. Is this... Oh, sorry, Duncan.

36:21Michael Cox: Just on that group stage, Michael mentioned earlier that it was the first season after the double group stage had been abandoned. But I think it kind of... If you want to sort of hint at the egalitarianism of that season, Real Madrid were the only team to go and beat it in that group stage. And you had the likes of Lyon, Arsenal and Milan all finishing top of their group having lost two games, which is very rare in Champions League terms. So it was, although there were strong teams and favourites in there, that sort of shows how open it turned out to be. It was also, for us UK television viewers, it was the first time that Sky had the rights to the Champions League and it was the first time that all the games were available.

37:00It was a complete novelty at the time. So whereas previously we basically just have to watch whatever English team were playing against, I don't know, Sparta Prague or Panathinaikos or whatever. You could dip in and out of whatever you wanted. And I remember really enjoying that Champions League campaign because I just watched a load of random games. Some of them were Porto, some of them were Lyon. I remember there was that incredible Deportivo 8-Monaco 3 game midway through the group stage. And you could watch all these games live. And it was really exciting. And it did feel like the Champions League had opened up a little bit.

37:31And the fact that you ended up with Porto, Monaco, Deportivo, and even Chelsea, who at the time were obviously not yet, you know, a global force as they are now. It was very exciting. It felt like a completely fresh, different Champions League, really. Plus you had Starlight by Muse as the incidental music on the UK TV coverage, which was nice. Anyway, I've no recollection of that. You're not. For me, if I think back to obviously you think of Kesey, but you also think of the piano break from you know ding ding ding ding ding ding ding ding ding

38:13yeah you know the one you're singing along aren't you listener stop that we'll get done by the copyright people anyway um porto bounced back from that shaky start with a victory over marseille and then a home win over Parts Ambar Grade. And then they had one more draw at the Bernabeu, which sounds good, except both teams were already through at that point to the last 16. A last 16 which paired Porto with Manchester United. Yes, that game. So the first leg in Porto had seen the Dregaos win 2-1 with a red card for Roy Keane after he took a stroll up Vito Bayer, or however you were pronounced that, which sounds much better, Pedro up the goalkeeper's back.

38:59Michael Cox: I mean, the red card at the time, Alex Ferguson complained bitterly immediately and Mourinho was quite perturbed by that. And then to be fair to Ferguson, he did say, actually, I've just watched it back and it was a red card. Roy's run up stood on his back. It was a very strange thing to do because Keane almost like hurdled the goalkeeper but then just decided to stand on him as well. So this tie was the moment that for me made the title possible. It was made clear here earlier in this conversation that beating Sir Alex Ferguson and beating Manchester United and beating some of the biggest personalities in the global game was just incredible for, again, a team from tiny Portugal to do.

39:47and in the second leg, then again, we talked about Costinho a little bit. I mean, for him to come out of nowhere and score with that rebound, I think nobody could have guessed that, you know, he didn't have many goals every season. I would say if he scored three a season, that was a lot. And to come in and score like he did in that second leg, you know, prompting those crazy celebrations by the corner flag. We are inside the last minute. It's McCarthy. It's a good save by Howard. It's been turned in by Costinha. Last minute. And it could be the last minute of Manchester United's European season.

40:29Great reaction by Jose Mourinho. To someone who follows Portuguese football for as long as I have, especially in international competition, it's an image that I think nobody forgets, that goal. Because to be honest, and again, every year when it's the anniversary of that goal, whether it's Porto or whether it's the official broadcaster, they really celebrate that moment. Because it was seen as the moment that allowed Porto to become champion. I know it was round of 16, but after that, it was like, we can do this now. It was clearly that moment. Mourinho had set the game up by saying, are United worried?

41:11Why should they be worried? All they have to do is beat us and we'll go home happy. with a pressure very much on what was a somewhat understrength Manchester United side, not to spoil the story, but they did have their issues, did they not? Ria Ferdinand was in his nine-month ban, they had a lot of injuries, and I think Sir Alex had been resting players in the league to make sure that they went through against Porto, and even after the 2-1 defeat away in Portugal, they were looking good to go through from this match, with Paul Scholes' header early on, putting them through or set to put them through on away goals.

41:49He then got another one, which was perhaps wrongly disallowed. And if you want to talk about sliding doors a moment, Costinha is often cited, but the linesman's decision on that second goal from Paul Scholes might be another one. But then when, right at the death, Tim Howard fumbles that free kick towards Costinha, all hell breaks loose. Terrible goalkeeping.

42:13Michael Cox: And that's the story? Well, for some, yeah. I mean, on the commentary, Ron Atkinson rightly points out that he could have palmed it wide or even caught it. But yeah, the Paul Scholes disallowed goal is hugely onside, at least a yard or two onside. So, you know, it led to what we need video referee calls at the time. But here we are. Well, on such fine margins, managerial miracles are built. And after getting past Manchester United, Porto then negotiated ties with... I think it's very hard. Who did they get past next, Michael? Leon, in the quarterfinals, and I think this quarterfinal was maybe...

42:58This whole round was probably the most memorable in Champions League history. Really? They had four incredible ties. Well, three incredible ties. I think Porto was the one that went under the radar. You're going to mention Deportivo Milan in here, aren't you? well of course yeah Milan 4-1 up against Deportivo lost 5-4 in aggregate you had the incredible game between Real Madrid and Monaco where Real Madrid were partly eliminated by Fernando Morientes and then you had Wainbridge scoring a late winner for Chelsea away at Highbury and yeah like I say Porto's win over Lyon kind of went under the radar there and I think looking back I would expect that once they got to the semi-final stage they were probably still the fourth favorites certainly not in the top two.

43:36I think Chelsea and Deportivo probably would have been more fancied than Porto, despite the fact they'd won the European Cup. And Monaco was so exciting. They had such good attacking options. So even at that semi-final stage, even with the relative outsiders, I think Porto, just because the quarter final wasn't as notable at the time as some of the others, I think probably were still considered outsiders at that point. So Mourinho winning it with Porto, how high would you rank that among the great managerial achievements? And corollary to that, what did he do to make that happen? And why can't he do it anymore, do you think?

44:11There's a Mourinho before Madrid. There's a Mourinho after Madrid. The Mourinho now, in my opinion, can not replicate these feats. I hope I'm wrong because I think at some point he'll become Portugal manager. And when that occurs, I obviously want him to win whatever he can with the national team. But it's a different manager. It's a different person. I mean, you mentioned the rivalry with Pep Guardiola. I think that really transformed him, and he was never really the same manager again because he just became obsessed with beating Barcelona rather than trying to develop his own football philosophy and making sure that he could be as dominant and as successful as before.

45:08I'm pretty clear on that. I think we were talking about a manager that at Porto, at Chelsea, at Inter, was, I would say, the best manager in the world, best manager on the planet at that point. But even though he was quite dominant at Real Madrid, he faced one of the best teams in the history of football. for a few years and that that just had a traumatic effect in the manager and in the person you go on with that Michael is it all about Real Madrid yeah I think in terms of I mean at the previous clubs he really tapped into players he had an incredibly close relationship with players I mean I think of that scene after the Champions League final with Inter when he's with Matarazzi kind of crying in the car park there was an incredible relationship he had with players I think the reason for his rise was he did do things a little bit differently I think both in terms of training and matches.

46:01I think one of the reasons that Portuguese football developed a lot of this time was they had this concept, if you like, called periodisation, where they kind of trained in a different way to how we expected, rather than having physical and tactical and technical drills. Everything was a combination. And a lot of players spoke about that at the time as being a different way to train and quite revolutionary at the time and was copied elsewhere. And the other thing was, I think you have to look at Mourinho's origins where he you know as he mentioned James he was an opposition scout really in the early years and his coaching style really was working backwards from the opposition away you know at a time when I don't think European football in general was was that tactical I think certainly I mean someone like Arsene Wenger for example I think became quite dated because he didn't really look at the opposition he just focused on his own side and I remember there was before the group stage game against Real Madrid, can't remember which one of them it was, sorry, but Mourinho in his press conference, he was talking about how you had to beat Real Madrid and he was saying, basically, we will need, he joked, we'll need 13 or 14 players and what he meant by that was he looked at the Real Madrid side and he said, well, we need to double up on Figo, we need someone who occupies the dam but also covers the space, we need man-marking centre-backs but also someone behind and obviously it was nonsense that he wasn't going to be playing with 13 players, obviously.

47:27But I don't think anyone else would have thought about things in that way. He really was looking at the opposition and working backwards and thinking about how his team had to play rather than thinking, well, these are my 11 players. This is how I'm going to impose myself. And I think at the time he was... I almost think of him and Benitez as similar. Benitez won the UEFA Cup with Valencia, won La Liga with Real Madrid in the same season. and they both came to England at the same time. Benitez took over Liverpool and it could have been the other way around. I believe Mourinho had had some kind of contact with Liverpool and I think Benitez, there'd been some contact with Chelsea and of course Benitez eventually.

48:07Very popular Chelsea. Yeah, well, eventually would take charge of Chelsea for half a season, actually won the UEFA Cup with them. But he was, I mean, he was very exciting at the time. I think if there's anyone listening who has only experienced the Mourinho over the last 15 years. The idea that one, his sides actually were quite exciting. And two, he was very charming. I mean, he was confrontational, but he was funny. He was different. He was bold, but he, you know, he really, yeah, he was something different. And that carried on in the Premier League. You know, when he came to the Premier League, we'd had six or seven years of Ferguson versus Wenger, which was in general, very exciting.

48:46But for someone to come in and be as confident as he was and shake things up. It was very exciting. And I think he inspired a lot of young coaches, particularly those who hadn't had a notable professional career. I mentioned this quite at the start. We talked about Porto as a group of kids coached by a kid. And I wonder to what extent him being young and enthusiastic and having just a more positive outlook on life maybe had an influence on his relations with players. Duncan.

49:17Michael Cox: Yeah, if you hear him talk about members of that Porto team or members of the Chelsea side he had in the 2000s, John Terry and Frank Lampard and people, he had a connection with them that I don't think he has in his latter years with younger players. And as Michael said, the attackingness of that Chelsea team in that first season, they scored 72 goals. The so-called free-flowing Invincibles the year before scored 73. And I would argue that the two biggest achievements... When you say so-called Invincibles, were they not? Well, they lost six games in cup competition. So Preston, for me, remained the official Invincibles.

49:59Michael Cox: But yeah, probably the two greatest achievements in league football in England are Arsenal going unbeaten in that 38-game campaign and Chelsea conceding only 15 goals the following year. Leicester. That was Mourinho's fault. He should have defended the title. But yeah, I think the level of excitement and interest and intrigue with those Mourinho mid-2000s years, younger people might not remember, like Michael said, just how intoxicating it was at the time. It really was a kind of like, wow, Chelsea are on the TV today and it's going to be this big, exciting thing to watch, which very much wasn't the case 10 years later.

50:48Plus, he had that savage, snarling sexiness, which that run down the touchline in his cashmere coat really encapsulated. Woof. So the Champions League final and Gilson Kirshen, exotically enough, Porto against Monaco. We'll look at how the story concluded for Mourinho and Porto next.

51:11This Monday.com ad was created by a team of people and AI agents. The agents wrote the copy and managed the timelines, while our human creative director made sure it all made sense. Easy. Create your own AI agent today on Monday.com.

51:31This is the Totally Football Show, part of the Athletic FC Podcast Network. The Athletic is the only place you can read articles by Daniel Taylor, Amy Lawrence, Phil Hay, James Pearce, Oli Kay and the very best football writers around. 2004 Champions League final pitted Mourinho's Porto against Didier Deschamps, Monaco. Dungan, the Champions League final of 2004 saw eyebrows raised all over Europe.

51:59Michael Cox: Yeah, it was only the fifth European Cup final that didn't feature a team from any of England, Spain, Italy or Germany. And it hasn't happened since, unsurprisingly. It also featured the biggest win ever up to that point in the Champions League. A 3-0 victory for Porto over Monaco, whose skipper Ludovic Juli went off early through injury, which a lot of people see as the turning point in this game. Mike, would you say that it was easier than expected for Porto? I think you're right in the turning point. They were on the back foot for the first half hour and scored slightly against the run of play.

52:34and then that, yeah, that was that really. If Porto scored the first goal, I think you were always, that kind of side, you're always confident if they scored the first goal, they would win. The ball is right, it's for Pedramento. It's for the first time, it's for the first time. The next time, Pau Ferreira. It's for the support, Pau Ferreira's cross-douche. The ball is in the corner, Pau Ferreira's cross-douche. Pau Ferreira's cross-douche. Goal!

52:56Goal! Goal! Goal!

53:02Goal! But yeah, it was a real final of underdogs. And I mean, Pedro can speak more about this than me, but I think it should be seen in the context of when Mourinho takes over Porto, you look at Portugal's ranking and the kind of coefficients and they're behind Greece, they're behind Turkey. And I think Czech Republic are up there as well. And this win for Porto, combined with the fact Portugal were hosting the Euros that summer, you've got Cristiano Ronaldo about to become the best player in the world. You've got Mourinho becomes the most revered manager around. And Portugal just goes to a different level when you have an explosion of Portuguese coaches across Europe, of Portuguese players across Europe.

53:40And I think to a certain extent, this is the turning point in all that. I agree. I think this season is the season that played a huge role in Portuguese football asserting itself internationally. And this is obviously the bulk of the team that then made the final of the Euro, which again, from a self-confidence and cultural and social perspective, made Portugal believe that we could compete and we could win for big trophies. I think historically, the issue with Portuguese teams, we've always had a lot of talent, but it's been mostly an emotional, a psychological, a mental block of we're small, we can't do this.

54:26and Mourinho for Porto completely transformed that. Scolari for Portugal completely transformed that. And both of these guys came in at exactly the same time and at the right time for this generation of players that had so much talent and potential. I think this final, I was covering the final actually, not in Gelsen-Kirchen, but in the studio I was working for the rights holder of the Champions League at the time. And, I mean, obviously we were on air constantly talking about the game before, during, and after. I think we finally finished our coverage around 4 o 'clock in the morning. And, yeah, I'll never forget this evening because it was so rare that a Portuguese team could make a final and win a final.

55:16The previous two finals that a Portuguese team had made in the Champions League were Beifica, who lost to PSV Eindhoven on penalties, and then Milan on a Frank Reichardt goal. And in international football as well, it was kind of like, yeah, well, we've got the talent, we can make it, and then we never made it. And this was the time where we already had players like Rui Costa and Figu. And I think the skeleton of this Porto side, as I said, transformed what happened next. I think that was a great point by Michael, saying that it was kind of flood. I don't know what the terminology is now. Open the floodgates?

55:57Yes, thank you. That's what I meant to say. For, I guess, a period where Portugal had best managers in the world, then the best player, then the best agents, then some of the best executives that are currently at some of the top clubs as well. It was a historic season, for sure. In that crowning moment, Pedro, with Porto having just lifted the trophy, was it strange, was it bittersweet to see Jose taking his medal off and basically walking away from the explosion? Yeah, it was really weird. And, you know, there was so much speculation about why that was happening. I won't get into a lot of the tabloid media because there's a lot of stories there that were never proven.

56:47but obviously he was on his way out to Chelsea. I do think that it was a shame. It was a shame. I think most of the shame for him that he wasn't allowed to celebrate such an incredible feat that night in Germany. And everybody thought it was weird when that happened. But the match itself, I agree. I agree with what was said. I think the Jolie injury took a lot of the air or the wind out of the Monaco sails early on. I think that the goal that was scored by, again, one of the least probable scorers in that final, which was Carlos Alberto, who was 18 or 19 at the time, kind of a wild card, which he was actually during the rest of his career.

57:39Be fair to say that that was the crowning moment or the high moment of his career. He kind of was all over the shop after that. and some of the Porto players from that team have told me that he was wild then and he just was wild for the rest of his career. He never really managed to be disciplined, be organized, be settled down and maybe live up to his potential. But I have a teenager who scored that opening goal, which was a huge gamble by Moody, you're putting him in that starting lineup for that match. And then Deku, obviously crowning his season, he became player of the season in Europe. in the Champions League.

58:16And then Alenicev came off the bench, and he deserved that, considering how instrumental he had been in the previous season in the UEFA Cup and was still a big player here. But I'm going to go back to that central spine of the team. I mean, Vitor Baia, Jorge Costa, Ricardo Carvalho, you know, Costinha, Manish, Deco, and then Derley was the striker then at the time. I mean, it's probably one of the best ever for any Portuguese club, past, present, or maybe even future. So it was special. OK. The flame that burns twice as bright burns twice as briefly. Jose, is there any better way to finish your career with Porto than that?

58:58No. No. In fact, it's the best way. I was two and a half years, and it was fantastic. Absolutely fantastic. We won everything. We created a good group. The club was sleeping a little bit and woke up very, very, very well and had a very good development in these two and a half years. And I'm very proud of what we did. But the time to leave, I think, I think arrive. In the next few days, I will decide everything. I have to speak with the club because I still have a contract with them. But my desire is to live. But how brightly they burnt Mourinho's Porto. Perhaps the most glorious chapter of Portuguese club football ever.

59:54And perhaps also, I would suggest, of Mourinho's career too. For all his later glories, there was something special about that young man and his natty threads shaking things up. Duncan, did you miss that move?

1:00:08Michael Cox: I do miss that Mo actually I think he he captured people's hearts in a way that made his sort of subsequent pragmatism and kind of grumpiness and I mean we shouldn't look past the fact that he has created some of the great me moments in his latter stage of his career you know football heritage all the Tottenham Amazon staff many title grumpiness United so you know that he it's very strange in a way to think of this that sort of Mourinho being such a sort of swashbuckling tactical mastermind but he was and it was a special time in football and I think it was a real changing point in football I think you can argue the early 2000s was the end of the sort of long 90s and he was the, Mourinho was the start of the 21st century Good Lord, what a lovely line of course he regards his most special managerial achievement as coming second in the Premier League with that Manchester United and we'll be doing a totally extra on that soon enough no doubt Michael yeah I mean it's a shame that he's become this quite well incredibly negative and and cynical and quite bitter character I think because he was like I say I think quite charming in the early years but I think this is what happens in football you know you have managers who come along and they have success by doing something differently and everyone work everyone else works out what they're doing, copies it.

1:01:32And sometimes these managers are able to adapt to stay ahead. And I think in Mourinho's case, he's a classic one who probably hasn't and has gone backwards. But I still think he's, you know, Pedro alluded to the fact that at some point, I think he's going to move into international football. And I think that probably suits him, you know, a little bit more defensive. Maybe the tactics are not as advanced, not as intricate in an attacking sense. and also you don't have to spend the whole year with the players because the thing that has fallen apart from Mourinho is his ability to connect with players.

1:02:07So, yeah, I'm interested to see. Obviously, he's out of work now. Interested to see where he ends up next. Listen, as we record this, it was the bit where he'd just been fired by Fernabashi and nobody paid all that much notice, to be fair. Well, here's hoping then for a third act for Mourinho's extraordinary career. but that was the first one the Porto years they were magnificent as it was to hear you Michael you Pedro and you Duncan on the topic before we wrap it up Duncan we had a question we did

1:02:42Michael Cox: the question was only two players scored for under Mourinho in the Champions League at more than one club and Pedro correctly identified Ricardo Calvario who did it once for Porto and twice for Chelsea. So we're looking for one more name. Michael? Is it Samuel Eto 'o? It is. Michael Cox with the correct answer as per. Yeah. Two for Inter and three for Chelsea in that sort of semi-forgotten 2013-14 season. In my case, totally forgotten. More for Chelsea than Inter. He only scored two for Inter that year. That surprises me. Well, he was playing at the fallback, wasn't he? yeah probably didn't help fair play remarkable all right dunca thank you so much for that and uh yeah another totally extra will be along in a week's time uh not sure what the subject matter will be but do have a listen loads of totally football shows in the meanwhile so give those a spin as well listener for now from all of us here it's goodbye you've been listening to the totally football show part of the athletic fc podcast network For more great podcasts just like this one, including The Athletic FC and our dedicated club podcasts, search for The Athletic on Apple, Spotify and all the usual places.

1:04:00We're also at The Totally Football Show on Insta and at The Totally Show on YouTube. The Totally Football Show is an Athletic Media Company production.

1:04:22Monday.com AI agents took over my work. And I absolutely love it. Chasing deadlines, writing status reports, updating stakeholders. Agents handle the daily grind now. I stay in the loop only when it matters. Create your own AI agent in minutes on Monday.com.