José Mourinho: Up Close and Personal Book Review

I was initially given this as a gift from my cousin at Christmas. The gift was probably a joke at first since Jose Mourinho had just been sacked from my boyhood club, Manchester United, in December 2018. However, I did find it very enjoyable to read and I believe it is a book that every sports fan can appreciate.

I finished this book during the first lockdown in 2020. I think the reading experience would have been quite different if I were to have read the book outside of lockdown, while other sports events were taking place. The book was written just after Manchester United won the Europa League final in 2016. Therefore, the book does not include some of Mourinho’s more recent sporting "failures". The book is written by a close friend of Mourinho that works as a journalist. In the book, Jose gives information to this journalist, which is then released as a breaking story to the press. This helped Jose manipulate the footballing world's perceptions for him and influenced various clubs and agents.

There are many interesting stories in this book including some of the transfer market dealings that took place during Mourinho’s tenures at Chelsea, Real Madrid and Inter Milan. The most notable transfer deal that was mentioned for me was the Inter Milan and Barcelona ‘Striker-swap deal’. The transfer involved the two clubs swapping their best strikers and Barcelona paying Mourinho's team an extra 50 million Euros on top of the deal. This was one of the best transfer deals in that decade for sure, Mourinho used that deal to push his team to win the Champions League trophy that next season. In later interviews Jose would admit his Inter Milan team was definitely not the strongest team in Europe. However, they managed to find a way to win against the best European teams that year.

The Inter Milan chapters of the book was my favourite. I would recommend Chelsea fans specially to give this book a read, for its historical importance on the club.