Jose Mourinho sacked from Roma

The famous Portuguese coach Jose Mourinho was fired from his post as coach of the Italian Roma. The period of his work in the Roman team was a typical story for Mourinho: there was a place in it for trophies, scandals, unfulfilled expectations, and falls. The fresh situation led to the specialist’s separation from Roma, where he was replaced by club legend Daniele De Rossi.

Italian Roma reported about the resignation of Jose Mourinho as head coach. In a statement dedicated to her, the club’s American owners Dan and Ryan Friedkin thanked the 60-year-old Portuguese for his “passion and dedication” in working with him.

Roma was already the seventh notable European team that one of the most popular football coaches had the opportunity to manage, after Porto, Chelsea (he ended up in it twice), Inter, Real Madrid, Manchester United. and Tottenham. And the Roman period of Jose Mourinho’s biography actually turned out to be typical for him – at least if we leave out the earlier, “smoother” stage of the Portuguese’s career.

Mourinho’s resume includes a wealth of achievements, including two Champions League victories. However, fans of those clubs that the coach headed in adulthood will remember him rather for the exceptional ambiguity, perhaps, of the fruits of his stay. Among them there was a place for everything – successes, failures, and scandals. Roma fans will not be an exception in this sense.

Jose Mourinho arrived at the Italian club in 2021. His owners pinned hopes on him for Roma to regain their lost status as an undisputed giant, at least at the local level. Mourinho actually achieved something important. In 2022, he won the Conference League and the new European Cup with Roma, defeating Feyenoord in the final, despite the fact that the Romans had not previously won prestigious continental trophies. And the next season they reached the decisive match of the tournament even higher in the European Cup hierarchy – the Europa League, but lost on penalties to Sevilla.

Meanwhile, the European Cup successes were accompanied by rather modest domestic results.

Italian media resources considered Roma to be the third most financially powerful club in Italy after Juventus and Inter, but not only did it not fight for gold, but it remained far from even less honorable medals, finishing sixth twice in a row.

In addition, even in the previous season, the conflict between Jose Mourinho, who never tried to behave with restraint, and the club management spilled into the public sphere. Italian sources claimed that the coach and team managers disagreed “on the development of the team,” and Mourinho himself, after the loss to Sevilla, said that he would like to continue working at Roma only “on more favorable terms.” By this, he meant, first of all, strengthening the squad, although he knew very well that the Romans by that time had already encountered problems with complying with the provisions of the financial fair play of the Union of European Football Associations (UEFA) and could not spend a lot of money on the market.

True, even the players who came to Roma as free agents or on loan in the summer of 2023 – Leandro Paredes, Romelu Lukaku, Renato Sanches – seemed to be not such a modest strengthening of the application. But no even relative breakthrough happened. On the contrary, Roma’s third season under Mourinho turned out to be paler than the previous ones. The Romans had a terrible start in the championship, then they seemed to have improved the game, but before the New Year they again found themselves in a crisis. Mourinho was kicked out two days after the defeat in the 20th round of the championship – 1:3 – from Milan, third in the last five matches of the tournament: after him the club is in ninth place, with a five-point gap from fourth, that is, from the “League zone” champions.” In addition, last week in the quarterfinals of the Italian Cup, Roma was knocked out by its principal rival Lazio. After a match in which he received a red card for arguing with the referee, Mourinho emotionally compared himself to Harry Potter, meaning that miracles were constantly expected of him, without taking into account the difficult realities.

Jose Mourinho’s successor at Roma was Daniele De Rossi, whose appointment the club announced a few hours after saying goodbye to the Portuguese. De Rossi is a true club legend. From 2011 to 2019, the midfielder played more than 600 matches for the club. However, De Rossi has minimal coaching experience. He was briefly a member of the Italian national team staff, as well as a coach of the second-ranking Italian division team, SPAL. The contract with him is concluded until the end of the current season.

Alexey Dospehov