Jose Mourinho has admitted that the decision to leave Real Madrid in 2013 to return to Chelsea is one of the biggest regrets of his illustrious career.
Mourinho has seen his stock fall in recent years, drifting away from the band of truly elite clubs that were once his domain. But a decade ago he rivaled Pep Guardiola as the hottest managerial property on the planet.
The Portuguese came to a crossroads in 2013, just one season into a four-year deal with Real Madrid but coming off the self-proclaimed “worst” campaign of his career.
Mourinho, who had finally broken Barcelona’s dominance of La Liga with a stunning 100-point season in 2011/12, left Madrid and returned to its fold Chelsea for a second spell in London. That meant telling Bernabeu president Florentino Perez he wanted out and severing ties.
In an interview with a Rome-based publication Corriere dello Sport this week, the now 61-year-old was pressed to name his biggest regret in football.
“If we’re talking about matches, a lot because when you lose you always think you could have done differently, and I’ve lost a lot of matches,” he replied.
“If you’re referring to career choices, no to Florentino. He told me, ‘Mou, don’t leave now, you’ve done the hard part and the good is yet to come’. I knew it would be like that, but I wanted to go back to Chelsea after three years in Spain of great races…”
Although Mourinho gave Chelsea a Premier League title in 2014/15, the club’s first in five years, Madrid immediately won the Champions League without him – the Portuguese, so famous for his European conquests with Porto and Inter Milan, has never done it again since 2010.
He also stated that his other big regret was not leaving Roma sooner, immediately after the disappointment of losing the 2023 Europa League final on penalties to Sevilla. Mourinho continued, but poor results the following season saw him sacked just seven months later.
