Who Is Jose Mourinho?

At a first glance, Jose Mourinho and the American Dream, are the oddest combination of words because he is not American, he is Portuguese, and no one dreams about becoming Jose Mourinho, not in America at least. In reality, Jose is the epitome of the American Dream. Therefore, what is the American Dream? The American dream doesn’t have an exact definition as it varies from person to person. In my own definition, The American Dream is about hard and honest work leading to success. The American Dream is about making something out yourself without taking shortcuts and finding loopholes and exploiting them. Simply put, The American Dream is about the pursuit of happiness. Who is Jose Mourinho? He is the self-proclaimed “special one”. The fans and the media love him because he
is always a microphone away from a headline. Jose Mourinho, once said “we want to follow a dream, yes its true, but it’s one thing to follow a dream and another to follow an obsession…A dream is more pure than obsession. A dream is about pride” (Charles). Jose always believed a dream is for the poor that are trying to accomplish something for the first time. Therefore, an obsession is for the rich who are trying to have more of the same.
Jose Mourinho is a hard worker and a fast learner, a fitting description for a man who started his footballing career as an interpreter.
Jose started from the bottom in the sense that his rise wasn’t supposed to happen, because of his background and this is common in sports. For example, “The underdog story really is the American Dream in a nutshell, and the world of sports is littered with such stories” (Bencomo). Jose is an underground story in the sense that he came from nothing and the world had no expectation of him but through hard work, he turned into success. Jose has coached in Portugal, Spain, England and his French is very good. It’s important to understand Jose Mourinho “The Interpreter” because it gives you a better understanding of the ladder he had to climb to become a professional coach. A typical professional coach plays professional soccer for 10-17 years, takes a 2 year break from football and becomes a coach. Teams are also more likely to hire a top player, because most of the top coaches used to be top players. A professional player has the advantage of being coached for 10 years, they know the practice drills and have access, but Jose is not the norm, he is the special
one.
An integral part of the American Dream is education, because it’s like an escalator (Kristof). Education will not make you rich, and will most definitely not make you rich fast. Education is tricky, because not all education are equal. The Scottish football association’s thoughts on Jose’s education are, “Bobby and Louis were his real finishing school. His real education came on the front line” (Khan). Jose Education background is interesting because he studied sports science at the Technical university of Lisbon and became a P.E. teacher. Studying sport science might have helped him on how to train your players, how to keep them healthy and evaluating the condition you players are in, if that, so the mystery that remains is where did he get his tactical brilliance. Tactics is something you have to be taught or experienced. The best players are usually the ones that have grasped the teachings of their instructor and the only step left is teaching it again. Therefore, this might explain Jose’s unorthodox approach to coaching. He doesn’t have the luxury of relying on his past coaches methods so he invents his own methods and wins with them.

Jose used to admire Sir Alex growing up, Sir Alex’s first impression of him was, “I remember his first press conference [at Chelsea, in 2004] and I thought: 'Christ, he's a cocky b******, him'. He was telling the players: 'Look, I'm the special one, we don't lose games” (Tanner). Jose refers to Sir Alex as, boss, not because he is his boss but as a sign of respect, as an acknowledgment of his success and experience, but it’s fair to conclude that their respect for each other isn’t mutual. Sir Alex’s comments might be harsh but Jose is arrogant, self-assured and a winner. These characteristics can be understood as a product of having to prove yourself your whole life, almost like a hard working American. Therefore, there is a wall built up in order to not show weakness and thus be perceived as a person who has everything under control, like the head of the family. Showing confidence is key because coaching is more than x’s and o’s, coaching is about leading men. Sir Alex’s thoughts on Jose’s success is, “I would never think a guy who hasn't played a game could be a top coach but then you've got to look at his personality. He's got a marvelous, strong personality and that bridges that gap” (tanner). Sir Alex’s views of Jose are significant because he is probably one of the most experienced, successful and central figures in the soccer world. The specifics of the American Dream is different for everybody because everybody has different interests and different goals. It’s to your advantage not to become a coach if you don’t have leadership skills. In other words, it’s vital to know your weakness and strengths as Jose does. For example, “If Roman Abramovich helped me out in training we would be bottom of the league and if I had to work in his world of big business, we would be bankrupt!” (Charles). These words from Jose are interesting because Jose’s well-known for dropping out of business school a day after his mom enrolled him. The American dream is understood as hard work paying off, but even Jose knows that everyone has a different aptitude. The American Dream is a world of possibilities, where a person can get from point A to Point B. Those possibilities are boundless but become narrower the more steps you take towards it.
It’s interesting that the dreamers are the ones with least. The ones dreaming are always the ones having to make sacrifices. The ones with the least are the most content as they see the bright side to everything and learn to get by with what they have. Jose’s take on dealing with setbacks or shortcoming, “It is like having a blanket that is too small for the bed. You pull the blanket up to keep your chest warm and your feet stick out. I cannot buy a bigger blanket because the supermarket is closed. But I am content because the blanket is cashmere. It is no ordinary blanket” (Charles).Therefore, to have an American, it’s a requirement for all your needs not to be satisfied. The ones with American Dream are the common folks because the American dream comes from a heart that feels empty and those goals fill up the vacancy. A person with just enough means to get by is content because it’s important to have one’s priorities straight. Therefore, to have the American Dream you have to come from a background with very little, that way you can dream about having more.
There are advantages and disadvantages of having no professional experience, but the advantages are few. The main disadvantage are that players don’t respect you, can’t relate to you and you pretty much have to prove yourself. Teams also keep you on a short leash as they will not give you the freedom and trust ex-professional players receive. When times are tough, the wins are drying up, the losses are piling up, teams are not as patient with you and they will find a replacement. In other words, it’s imperative that you hit the ground running. For example, Usain Bolt is the fastest runner in the world, but he is a notoriously slow starter, those long strides take a while to hit full gear. An ex-professional player will get an opportunity to finish the race after a slow start but a coach like Jose will get canned with more than half the race left. The game is pretty rigid for ex-pro’s and thus makes Jose’s rise that much more inspiring. Success is always more impressive when the odds are against you, because it takes belief in yourself to keep going as the rest of the world doubts and that is the American Dream in a nut shell.
The American Dream is interesting because it can be seen as a negative and a positive. For example, a positive would be that if people are still dreaming, then hope is still alive and so is the American dream. Yes, the American Dream is still alive. For example,” Political innocent I may be, but I find great irony in that, while everybody agrees there is massive inequality in the United States today, it's in sports where the American dream still lives — more than ever” (Deford). The negatives comes when the gap between where you’re at and where you’re heading is too large to cover in one lifetime. The positive is that Jose is changing kids dream. In addition, before Jose every young soccer fan dreamed of becoming a player, because that’s where all the attention and spotlight and was at. In order to become a coach you had to be an ex-player. It used to be that if a team won, it was because a player scored a goal or a goalkeeper saved a goal, after Jose, it’s because the coach drew up the play and is the orchestrator behind the goal. This is important because it illustrates how a dream can change. The same way that a kid’s dream can evolve over a generation, then The American Dream can evolve over time because every generation places different values on different goals. Jose’s most quote worthy comment is, “It is omelettes and eggs. No eggs – no omelettes! In the supermarket you have class one, two or class three eggs and some are more expensive than others and some give you better omelettes. So when the class one eggs are in Waitrose and you cannot go there, you have a problem” (Charles). This response is to a question about a lack of funding but what makes it interesting is that it can be applied to our day to day life. This comment highlights the state of the American Dream in the 21st century, as it change over time. The American need is not eggs but money. The state of today’s American Dream is that more people are settling for less, because maybe due to a lack of inspirational stories like Jose showing the rest of America that just about anything and everything is possible. The American Dream will never die for as long as there is people, there is hope; as long as there is hope, there is the American Dream. The fact that one of the best example of the American Dream is found outside of America is a good sign because it shows no matter what corner of the world you live in, the values that we have in America apply in different countries too. It shows that our values don’t discriminate. Jose Mourinho is one of the best living examples because he is an outsider with American qualities, perhaps his next stop is to coach the US national team, lead the National Team to the Promised Land and forever become an American Hero. Soccer is not very popular in America, but maybe one day it will rival or garner as much attention as the NBA, the NFL or MLB. The only time there is a soccer frenzy in America is when the world cup is on. The NBA and NFL is in offseason mode and the only competition for TV rating is a dying sport of Baseball. It’s ironic that the sport of baseball, that’s considered America’s past time, faces extinction. If any sport can jump baseball and became one of the top three sports its soccer and the man to push that lead is Jose, because he has the charisma and winning mentality Americans seem to appreciate