Under Mourinho, Porto have been technically perfect throughout

Lisbon: Jose Mourinho is nothing if not a quick learner. In 1992, the man who will lead Porto out at the Champions League final against Monaco next week took a job as a translator for English coach Bobby Robson at Sporting.

Twelve years on, hard work, loyalty and an obsessive attention to detail have seen him become one of the game’s best and brightest young coaches.

If media reports are accurate, the well-groomed, greying 41-year-old will swap Porto for a multi-million-euro contract at Chelsea, regardless of the result of the final in Gelsenkirchen, Germany, on May 26.

No-one in Portugal would begrudge Mourinho such a step, after an incredible two-and-a-half-year journey during which he has re-established Porto as one of Europe’s top clubs. In his first full season, he guided the team to the Uefa Cup and Portuguese league and Cup titles. This year, in only his fourth season as a fully fledged coach, Porto have won the league title again and were runners-up to Benfica in the Portuguese Cup.

Mourinho has no track record as a player but he has been involved in the game since his teens, preparing reports on forthcoming opponents when his father, a former international goalkeeper, was coaching at Vitoria Setubal. “He told me when he was 15 that he wanted to be a coach when he grew up,” his father recalled recently. “When he was a kid he only wanted a football as a present.”

Mourinho abandoned his career as a reserve team midfielder to study physical education at Lisbon’s sporting university and at the age of 24 he completed a Uefa coaching course in Scotland.

He lost his job as a fitness trainer at Estrela Amadora when his coach, Manuel Fernandes, was sacked but salvation came when Fernandes recommended him to Robson as a translator at Sporting.

It was to be the start of a five-year apprenticeship for Mourinho, who moved on with Robson to Porto and Barcelona.

Along the way, Mourinho was promoted from translator to second assistant coach and later to a post as Robson’s number two, clearly impressing the former England manager. “He’s a very intelligent boy who can speak very shrewdly, very cleverly about the game,” Robson said when Mourinho took over at Porto in 2002. “I think I gave him a good education.”

When Robson was kicked upstairs at Barcelona to make way for Louis van Gaal in 1997, Mourinho stayed on to work with the Dutchman, helping to coach players such as Rivaldo and Luis Figo.

He took up his first post as head coach in 2000 at Benfica. It was not an auspicious start, with Mourinho walking out after a row with the president early in the season.

After Benfica, he took a job at Uniao Leiria, where his father had held a coaching post in the late 1970s and the young Mourinho had cleaned boots for the first-team players. He guided the side to third place in the league and accepted an offer to return to Porto in January 2002, promising to lead the club to the title the following season.

The 2002-03 season saw Porto move back into the European spotlight with their Uefa Cup final victory over Celtic and this year promises a second European Cup win for the club, 17 years after their triumph against Bayern Munich. Under Mourinho, Porto are technically perfect throughout, from rock-solid Ricardo Carvalho at centre-back to the artful Deco in the centre, supported by the vision of Maniche and the jinking runs of Carlos Alberto and Derlei Silva. (Reuters)