Since the turn of the decade, we haven’t seen too many managers at the top of European football as controversial as Jose Mourinho. He has enjoyed great success with his clubs, but he hasn’t always been everyone’s cup of tea.
Mourinho first made a name for himself at Porto, where he led the side to the 2004 Champions League title, for just the second time in their history. No Portuguese side have come as close to winning Europe’s top prize since.
This was enough to persuade Roman Abramovich that he was the man to bring success to Stamford Bridge, and he succeeded, winning successive Premier League titles in his first two seasons at Chelsea.
He went on to win the treble at Inter Milan in 2010, including an impressive run to the Champions League title. After this, he went off to manage Real Madrid, where although he won the LaLiga title, things were always a little bit uneasy.
He has since returned to England, winning the Premier League with Chelsea before being sacked in acrimonious circumstances. He took over at Old Trafford in 2016, and won the EFL Cup and Europa League in his first season with the club.
But all is not well at Old Trafford, and there is certainly a toxic atmosphere around the club. It was reported that Mourinho had stripped Paul Pogba of the vice-captaincy at United, and the video of the pair on Wednesday seemed to show the frostiness between them.
This is still one of the more bizarre ones on this list, that no one has ever really been able to work out. Mata was quite brilliant for Chelsea in his first two seasons with the club, winning their Player of the Year award on both occasions.
He was a huge part of the side who won the Champions League in 2012, and was almost irreplaceable in their team. That was at least until Mourinho came along.
From the first moment, there were problems. He didn’t make it into Mourinho’s side at the start of the season, and he was never able to change his manager’s mind about him. Mourinho was unhappy with Mata’s inability to track back in the same way some of his other players did, and he felt it often left them vulnerable at the back.
He was sold to Manchester United just six months after Mourinho returned to Chelsea. Ironically, Mourinho took over at Old Trafford in 2016, and Mata currently finds himself out of the United side.