Lucas Moura names Jose Mourinho as his favourite among the managers he has worked with, giving a funny example of how direct the former Spurs boss was.
Jose Mourinho came to Tottenham at the wrong time
Tottenham turned to Mourinho after Mauricio Pochettino’s time at the North London club had run its course, with Daniel Levy appointing the Portuguese coach in a desperate attempt to break the trophy hoodoo.
However, in hindsight, it is clear that Spurs got Mourinho at a time when his powers were on the wane, with the experiment always doomed to fail.
The Special One lasted only 15 months in the Tottenham hot seat, with things souring towards the end. In fact, he was eventually sacked just six days before the League Cup final.
Lucas Moura on Mourinho
It was widely reported that Mourinho had lost the dressing room in his final months at Spurs and that things became toxic behind the scenes (The Athletic).
However, Moura confessed that he loved working with the 61-year-old due to his straight-talking nature.
The former Spurs winger said (via GiveMeSport): “The manager I liked working with the most was Mourinho. He looks you in the eye and he’s very transparent. Sometimes he’d ask me, ‘How are you’, and I would tell him ‘I am fine’. He would say ‘Really? Because in the last game, you were s**t’.”
Old-school players love Jose
Players who do not mind direct confrontation and love being challenged, generally tend to love working with Mourinho.
It is fair to say that most footballers of the current generation are not built that way, which perhaps explains why the former Spurs boss’s management techniques are not as effective any longer.