Analyzing Mourinho’s Methodology Part 1

Jose Mourinho has been one of the best coaches in the last decades and we dig dip, to analyze the Mourinho Methodology.

The secret of José Mourinho’s success is best explained by his deep understanding of football’s most unexploited resource: the human psychology.

Jose Mourinho has been one of the greatest Man-Manager football has ever produced.

Back In The Year 2011 he had an interview with BBC Sport about the issue of Man Management, and here is what he said:

“Football for me is a human science; it’s about man, above everything else”

yet his reference goes far beyond ‘rotating the squad’ and ‘keeping players happy’. Rather, it’s about a deep understanding and appreciation of players as complex human beings with desires and emotions, and the knowledge of how to exploit it.

“A coach must be everything: a tactician, motivator, leader, methodologist, psychologist,”Mourinho said.

”A teacher at university told me ‘a coach that knows only about football is not a top one. Every coach knows about football, the difference is made in the other areas’. He was a teacher of philosophy. I got the message.”

Few others have. The human psyche is one of football’s untapped resources, an irony for a sport in which every advantage is exploited so thoroughly. While scientific advances are made to improve players’ capacity, motivation and management – the art of extracting it – is condensed to meetings and pep-talks. While some are good at that, Mourinho is arguable the first football manager to fully embrace – and master – the role of a psychologist.

The Individual A cornerstone in Mourinho’s ‘methodology’ (his favourite expression) is the tailoring of communication to each individual – something he admits is his hardest task as coach. Being a psychologist is complex in itself; players with a near-divine self-image are in equal need of stimulation as fragile personalities.

But is it also continually challenging in that the players’ mood must be judged from game to game. David Luiz may be fired-up on Saturday and distraught on Wednesday. Balancing this motivational act with 22-23 players two times a week requires not only a masterful communicator, but someone with a deep understanding of each player’s emotions and personal goals; what drives them, what gets them going.

There are many examples. During Mourinho’s First Reign at Chelsea, Mourinho told Frank Lampard he was the world’s best player but needed to win trophies – challenging his ambition while exploiting the fact that, until then, Lampard had won nothing. And This is what Mourinho has started impacting on the young players now.

At half-time during an Inter game, he told an under-performing Zlatan Ibrahimović, soon to receive the award as Serie A’s best foreign player, to hand the prize to his mother – “someone who actually deserves it”.

In saying so, Mourinho was playing on the Swede’s pride. Ibrahimović returned to the pitch, promising to run until he tasted blood.

Clearly, in terms of motivational techniques, Mourinho operates on a much deeper level than other managers. His methodology surpasses pep-talks and hair-dryer treatments, primarily because one message can only speak to so many individuals.

Players are different – indeed, humans are different. They have good and bad days – highs and lows. What inspires some may lead others to switch off.“There are many ways to become a great manager,”Mourinho says.“But mostly I believe that the most difficult thing is to lead men with different cultures, brains and qualities.

And I think to manage this is the most important thing.”
This also partly explains Mourinho’s ability to succeed in different leagues. He absorbs the cultural values, dismantles the players’ minds and deploys his strategies accordingly.

His pragmatism applies not only to tactics.

Beyound Professionalism

Connected to motivation is the question of how much success means to a player. Everyone wants to win the league; what they are willing to sacrifice varies greatly.

This might be speculative, but Mourinho’s players appear to invest more into his projects than anyone else’s.”From here each practice, each game, each minute of your social life must centre on the aim of being champions,”Mourinho wrote to his players before meeting them at Chelsea. Such commitment goes beyond professionalism; in fact it nearly eclipses the players’ reality. Football becomes not just work, but the scene on which the meaning of 95 per cent of their day-to-day actions unfolds.

Naturally, once the players have invested this much, they will fight to get just rewards.

While Mourinho tirelessly follows his own mantra – current and former players say he works harder than anyone else – he recognises when his players have had enough. At Inter, he noticed Wesley Sneijder was exhausted and encouraged a holiday.

“All the other coaches [in my career] only spoke about training”, said Sneijder

End Of Part One (Part 2 to come soon, stay tuned!)