Story highlights
Jose Mourinho appointed Manchester United manager
Will come up against new Manchester City boss Pep Guardiola
"The Special One" has had his fair share of feuds
Former Manchester United manager Alex Ferguson once famously described Wimbledon, Chelsea and Millwall player Dennis Wise as a man who could “start a fight in an empty room” – a description which could equally be applied to the man who is taking on his old job.
Mourinho has been installed at Old Trafford after outgoing manager Louis van Gaal failed to deliver Champions League football to the European giants.
The self styled “Special One,” Mourinho is no stranger to controversy and his new job will allow him plenty of opportunities to spar with an old rival – the incoming manager of the Red Devils’ crosstown rivals Manchester City, Pep Guardiola.
So as Mourinho settles into his job – no doubt ready to ruffle a few more feathers – how do his previous beefs stack up?
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Pep Guardiola/Tito Vilanova/Barcelona
Mourinho’s history with the Catalan giants goes back to 1996, when he arrived from Portugal as then-manager Bobby Robson’s assistant and translator – a fact that Barca fans never let him forget.
When head coach at rivals Real Madrid, he was taunted at the Nou Camp with chants of “traductor” – translator.
He’s sparred with Guardiola, who more often than not refused to rise to his taunts. But that didn’t stop Mourinho from trying to get a rise from the new City boss.
“When you enjoy what you do, you don’t lose your hair, and Guardiola is bald,” Mourinho said in September 2014. “He doesn’t enjoy football.”
However, the Portuguese crossed what many considered to be a line in the Spanish Super Cup encounter of 2011 when he poked then-assistant manager Tito Vilanova in the eye during a pitchside scuffle.
Arsene Wenger
Mourinho’s feud with Arsenal’s veteran manager Arsene Wenger is long-running and particularly fractious, and complicated by the fact that the Frenchman has only beaten him once, in the inconsequential Community Shield match in August of last year.
Among a long list of barbs between the two, Mourinho has branded Wenger a “specialist in failure” for Arsenal’s ever increasing wait for a Premier League trophy – the Gunners last won the title in the 2003/04 season – and has also called him a “voyeur,” for his apparent obsession with Chelsea’s spending and success.
The war of words boiled over in October 2014, with Wenger shoving his counterpart on the touchline as Chelsea beat Arsenal 2-0.
The Frenchman refused to shake his counterpart’s hand following a subsequent meeting.
Rafa Benitez
The Spanish coach of Newcastle United has a history of following Mourinho into jobs, taking over at Chelsea, Inter and Real Madrid in the wake of Mourinho’s meltdowns at each club.
Mourinho has repeatedly trashed his successor, saying that the Spaniard owed him a thank-you for the teams that he inherited, while boasting that fans always prefer him over Benitez and that the Spaniard would be unable to match his success.
Benitez’s wife, Montse Seara, however, told a Spanish newspaper that her and her husband “tidy up (Mourinho’s) messes.”
Mourinho hit back by saying: “If she takes care of her husband’s diet she will have less time to speak about me.”
Manuel Pellegrini
As the Chilean departs Manchester, he is perhaps breathing a sigh of relief that he won’t be looking across at bitter rival Mourinho next season.
Mourinho took over from Pelligrini at the Bernabeu in 2010, setting up a dig at the departing manager by belittling his next job. “If they get rid of me, I won’t be going to coach Malaga,” he said upon inheriting Pelligrini’s Real office.
The rivalry carried on to England, where both were managing in the Premier League, with Mourinho possibly-maybe deliberately miscalling the Manchester City man “Mr. Pelligrino” during a press conference, a joke he’s wheeled out on more than one occasion.
In 2015 he also took a dig at City’s financial muscle – an odd choice, maybe, for a manager who at the time was coaching a team bankrolled by a Russian billionaire.
“The rules are different for City, you know what I mean. But they can only play with 11, unless the rules for them are different and they can play with 12.”
Eva Carneiro
Mourinho lost his temper after Chelsea’s first-team doctor Eva Carneiro and physiotherapist Jon Fearn went onto the pitch to attend Belgium international Eden Hazard in the closing moments of the English Premier League champions’ 2-2 draw at home to Swansea City on last season’s opening day.
Mourinho called the two medical staff members “impulsive and naive,” and said that he wasn’t “happy” with the two.
“Even if you are a medical doctor or secretary on the bench, you have to understand the game,” he said. Britain’s General Medical Council (GMC) had a different take on the matter, backing Carneiro’s call.
Carneiro, who left the club after being frozen out by Mourinho, is suing both the club and Mourinho himself, the latter for alleged victimization and discrimination.
Mario Balotelli
Not so much a feud as a series of frustrations, the master motivator revealed to CNN’s Pedro Pinto that even he couldn’t get through to the talented but wayward Italian striker.
“Mario was good fun. I could write a book of 200 pages of my two years in Inter with Mario. But the book would be not a drama, the book would be a comedy.
“We went to Kazan in the Champions League and in that match I had all my strikers injured. No (Diego) Milito, no (Samuel) Eto’o, I was really in trouble and Mario was the only one. Mario gets a yellow card in minute 42, 43, so when I went to the dressing room at half time I spent, I would say, 14 minutes of the 15 speaking only for Mario.
“‘Mario, I cannot change you. I cannot make a change, I don’t have a striker on the bench. Don’t touch anybody. Play only with the ball, when we lose the ball no reaction, if someone provokes you, no reaction, if the referee makes a mistake, no reaction. Mario, please.’ Minute 46? Red card.”
2015-16 Chelsea first team
Following one of the many defeats in his woeful final season at Chelsea, Mourinho told reporters he felt “betrayed” by his players, who had failed to carry out his tactical instructions.
“One of my best qualities is to read the game for my players and I feel like my work was betrayed,” Mourinho told Sky Sports.
“One possibility is that I did an amazing job last season and brought the players to a level that is not their level and now they can’t maintain it.”
