Wenger retired from management in 2018, but that hasn’t stopped Mourinho from poking the bear. When Wenger published his autobiography in 2020, Mourinho was upset that he wasn’t mentioned in the book. “It doesn’t bother me,” Wenger told French broadcaster Canal+. “It’s permanent provocation. I feel like I’m in kindergarten with him. But that’s part of his personality.” 

Thankfully, the vibes haven’t been entirely rancid. Mourinho admitted he actually regretted some of the “negative episodes” with Wenger before honoring the manager at his final match at Old Trafford, and the duo were studio analysts during the 2019 Champions League final between Liverpool and Tottenham Hotspur. Apparently, if there’s one thing in soccer that can mend fences, it’s listening to Liverpool fans singing “You’ll Never Walk Alone.” 

Pep Guardiola

Before we address the beef with Pep Guardiola, it’s important to understand Mourinho’s acrimonious history with Barcelona, where Guardiola played and later coached. Mourinho served as an assistant coach and translator for Sir Bobby Robson when he was Barcelona’s manager; since then, the cules have taunted Mourinho with chants of traductor, or “translator,” to diminish his contributions to the club. Things only got worse when Mourinho went on to manage Barcelona’s fierce rivals, Real Madrid, which coincided with Guardiola’s reign. Mourinho’s most infamous moment in this feud came when he poked Guardiola’s assistant coach Tito Vilanova in the eye during a pitchside scuffle in the 2011 Spanish Super Cup. “Who is Vilanova? I don’t know any Pito Vilanova,” Mourinho said after the match, echoing beef queen Mariah Carey. 

Guardiola, for his part, let his teams do most of the talking, though he did take a swipe at Mourinho’s defensive, pragmatic style of soccer in 2014. “It seems to me that Mourinho prefers the result to the spectacle,” Guardiola said during a heated debate about—and this is not a joke—the ideal length of grass on a pitch. “I know to him that’s all that matters.” In response, Mourinho took aim at the poor guy’s hairline. “When you enjoy what you do, you don’t lose your hair, and Guardiola is bald,” Mourinho said. “He doesn’t enjoy football.”

Considering Guardiola has continued winning titles in England long after Mourinho’s left the Premier League, it’s fair to say that, bald or not, Pep’s been enjoying his football. 

Eden Hazard 

With former Chelsea star Eden Hazard, two things can be true at once: He was a preternaturally gifted footballer, and he was, in the words of former teammate Mikel John Obi, “the laziest player I have played .” Laziness can be brushed aside by winning and being the offensive spark for your team on a consistent basis, but when things go awry? Well, someone like Mourinho isn’t going to pull any punches.

After Hazard criticized Chelsea being set up to counterattack against Atletico Madrid in the 2014 Champions League semifinals, Mourinho went after his talisman. “When the comments come from a player like Eden it’s normal because he’s not the kind of player to sacrifice himself for the team,” Mourinho said. “Eden is the kind of player that is not so mentally ready to look back to his left back and to leave his life for him.” 

Hazard, to his credit, has owned up to his poor form at the end of Mourinho’s second tenure, admitting that the players asked for an extended holiday after winning the Premier League and he came back “totally out of shape.” Mourinho, meanwhile, has always admired Hazard’s talents, but echoed Mikel’s sentiments when he called him an “awful” trainer who never applied himself. Was Mourinho being a little too harsh on a Chelsea legend? Maybe. Was Mourinho vindicated when Hazard moved to Real Madrid, arrived at preseason overweight, and admitted that sometimes he didn’t even want the ball in training? Definitely. 

Antonio Conte

Antonio Conte is no stranger to confrontation (see: the Thomas Tuchel dustup), so it’s little surprise that he was ready and willing to get into a war of words with Mourinho. Like Professor X taking on Magneto, these two trading barbs is guaranteed box office entertainment. Over the years, Conte has called Mourinho a “little man,” has said Mourinho has “demenza senile” (translation, if you need it: senile dementia), and asked Mourinho to “meet me in a room, just me and him.” Mourinho, meanwhile, has said he won’t “lose his hair” speaking about Conte—a dig at the Italian’s highly publicized hair transplant—and offered a backhanded compliment to Conte’s “very defensive” Chelsea team winning the Premier League. 

A quick psychology detour: What makes this beef particularly intriguing is that Mourinho and Conte aren’t all that dissimilar from each other. Both are hotheaded managers with a penchant for rigid defensive teams who win tons of trophies in a short period of time before burning bridges with club higher-ups. That Mourinho appears to find Conte so aggravating might say a lot about how he perceives himself. Either that, or Mourinho simply hates dudes who get hair transplants (Conte) just as much as ones who embrace their baldness (Guardiola). 

Sir Alex Ferguson 

When Mourinho arrived at Chelsea, Sir Alex Ferguson—to this day the winningest coach in Premier League history—was the proverbial dragon that had to be slain. But the Mourinho-Ferguson rivalry began when the former was still at Porto, as Ferguson’s Manchester United faced them in the Champions League knockout stages in 2004. After Mourinho’s side won the fiery first leg, Ferguson refused to shake his hand. Mourinho returned the favor while coaching Inter Milan in 2009, though he was uncharacteristically remorseful after the fact. “I left a £300 bottle of wine in the hotel with a note saying we would meet each other after the game at Old Trafford,” Mourinho explained.

Overall, despite Ferguson taking shots at Mourinho as a “great media tactician,” their rivalry has been surprisingly restrained. Maybe Mourinho respects Ferguson’s accolades; maybe he respects that he’s always had a full head of hair. What’s more, Mourinho called his own shot when he said in 2009 that he could see himself managing United after Ferguson retired. “Special clubs need special managers so in theory it could work,” Mourinho boasted. It took another seven years to come to fruition, but Mourinho got his wish. Mourinho’s tenure did not, however, bring the Red Devils back to their glory days. In Manchester, Sir Alex remains the only Special One. 

Iker Casillas

With how much hate Mourinho holds in his heart for Barcelona, it totally tracks that he started feuding with Real Madrid goalkeeper Iker Casillas because he tried reconciling with their archrivals. Casillas and Mourinho’s falling out started when Casillas reached out to Xavi and Carles Puyol, hoping to smooth things over with the Barcelona stars for the sake of the Spanish national team. Mourinho viewed this as an act of treachery and became convinced that Casillas was a mole leaking Madrid’s dressing room unrest to his then-girlfriend, Sara Carbonero, a sports journalist.

Mourinho wound up benching Casillas for a match against Málaga, and later told Inter goalkeeper Julio Cesar that he made more saves with one arm than Casillas could with two, which is a wild thing to say about someone who allowed Germany to slip seven goals past him in a World Cup semifinal. Reflecting on the manager’s tenure at Real Madrid, Casillas lamented that he didn’t confront Mourinho for creating so much tension at the club during its rough patch. Mourinho, however, called bullshit. “When he says that he never confronted me, that is not true,” Mourinho said. “He did confront me and did so in the manner that he does better than anyone—secretly.” Wherever you stand on the Mourinho-Casillas beef, I think we can all agree: It’s had more drama than a Spanish soap opera. 

Pepe

Another twist in Mourinho’s spat with Casillas: Pissing off a fellow Real Madrid legend. After Mourinho confessed that he wished he’d signed goalkeeper Diego Lopez, center back Pepe stood up for Casillas, saying nosotros estamos con Iker, or “we are with Iker.” But from Mourinho’s perspective, Pepe’s issues with him stemmed from the player’s increasing irrelevance as a starter. “It’s very easy to analyse the thing with Pepe. His problem has a name, and that name is Raphael Varane,” Mourinho said in 2013. “It isn’t easy for a man aged 31 with a lot of experience behind him to be blown out of the water by a kid of 19 … Pepe’s life has changed.” 

Pepe, of course, remained at the club until 2017, earning regular playing time, and reflected on the Mourinho era as a dark cloud during which people “hated” Madrid. “It lasted three years and thank God it went very quick,” Pepe added. Coming from someone regarded as one of the dirtiest players of his generation—with YouTube compilations to show for it—that’s saying something. 

Rafa Benítez (and his wife) 

In a weird twist of fate, Rafa Benítez has managed three clubs after Mourinho left them: Chelsea, Inter Milan, and Real Madrid. This trend led to Benítez’s wife, Montserrat Seara Benítez, boasting in an interview with the Spanish newspaper La Region that her husband is tasked with tidying up Mourinho’s “messes.” Setting aside the fact that Mourinho had a better record at all three clubs, the Benítezes should’ve known that he wouldn’t let this slight go unpunished. 

“The only club where her husband [immediately] replaced me was at Inter Milan, where in six months he destroyed the best team in Europe at the time,” Mourinho responded. “For her also to think about me and to speak about me, I think she needs to occupy her time, and if she takes care of her husband’s diet she will have less time to speak about me.” The fat-shaming was uncalled for, but what else do you expect? Contrary to Michelle Obama, when they go low, José Mourinho will go even lower. 

Eva Carneiro 

Mourinho’s outbursts aren’t limited to players and managers: Doctors can get caught in the crossfire, too. In a 2015 Premier League match between Chelsea and Swansea City, Hazard was treated for an injury by first-team doctor Eva Carneiro and physio Jon Fearn, which temporarily left the Blues down to nine men, having already seen a player sent off. Mourinho reacted with his typical theatrics:

Mourinho described the decision as “impulsive and naive,” and Carneiro was no longer permitted to attend matches or training sessions In response, Carneiro sued the club as well as Mourinho, alleging that he called her filha da puta, or “daughter of a whore.” Of all Mourinho’s public spats, this is the most reprehensible; thankfully, Carneiro’s ordeal had a positive ending. She would ultimately settle the claims against Chelsea and Mourinho on confidential terms—and that was after rejecting a £1.2 million offer from the Blues, so you know she got paid—and she’s now the co-owner of the Isthmian League club Lewes FC. 

Allan Saint-Maximin

Getting left out of a matchday squad is never going to sit well with a player, and Fenerbahçe’s Allan Saint-Maximin took to social media to express his displeasure with Mourinho’s choice to omit him from a Europa League encounter with Rangers. “It will take more than this to defeat me,” Saint-Maximin posted on Instagram. “When a lie takes the elevator, the truth takes the stairs. It takes longer but it always arrives in the end. If God is with us, who can be against us? Romans 8:31.”

When Mourinho learned of Saint-Maximin’s poetic snark, he countered with some of his own. “I didn’t know Saint-Maximin was talented in poetry,” Mourinho said. “I’m not bad in that regard either. When a football player works well, works hard, trains every day, he is fit and can climb the stairs. He doesn’t need an elevator. However, if a player doesn’t train well, arrives late, is overweight, is not ready to play, he needs an elevator to go up. Because he gets tired quickly on the stairs.” 

Getting dropped for a crucial match sucks, but Saint-Maximin should’ve known better. Trading jibes with Mourinho would be like trying to tackle Derrick Henry: It’s only gonna end in misery. 

Ricardo Carvalho

Another beef, another player questioning Mourinho’s matchday decision-making. In Chelsea’s opening match of the 2005-06 season against Wigan Athletic, center back Ricardo Carvalho was left out of the starting lineup by Mourinho. Carvalho was shocked by his omission, telling the Portuguese newspaper A Bola that it was “incomprehensible” he would become the club’s third-choice central defender. Once Mourinho got word of Carvalho’s dissent, he didn’t bite his tongue.

“Ricardo Carvalho seems to have problems understanding things, maybe he should have an IQ test,” Mourinho said. “I am not happy to have heard about this through the papers. Ricardo has worked with me for four years and I do not understand these quotes, he probably needs to see a doctor … we can’t have this kind of thing [at Chelsea].” Telling someone their intelligence should be medically evaluated is some next-level trolling, but it didn’t fracture the relationship between player and manager, as Carvalho reunited with Mourinho at Real Madrid. Given that they also won a La Liga title together, it was a high-IQ move. 

Claudio Ranieri 

If you’re sensing a theme, Mourinho really doesn’t like fellow managers who’ve taken the reins at Chelsea, and that includes the man he originally replaced in the Blues dugout: Claudio Ranieri. However, it wasn’t until Ranieri and Mourinho crossed paths in Serie A while managing Juventus and Inter, respectively, that their beef really sizzled. “I am not like Mourinho,” Ranieri said in 2018. “I don’t have to win things to be sure of myself.” Mourinho, in turn, chose to dwell on Ranieri’s failures. 

“In 2004, after coming to Chelsea and asking why Ranieri was replaced, I was told they wanted to win and it was never going to happen with him,” Mourinho responded. “It is really not my fault if he was considered a loser at Chelsea … He’s old and he hasn’t won anything. I studied Italian five hours a day for many months to ensure I could communicate with the players, media and fans. Ranieri had been in England for five years and still struggled to say ‘good morning’ and ‘good afternoon.’”

A tough beat for Ranieri, but after he led Leicester City to the Premier League title in 2016—one of the greatest underdog triumphs in the history of the sport—even Mourinho had to tip his cap. “What he did there was bigger than all of the titles I won at Chelsea and in 50 years’ time the Leicester fans will still know that,” Mourinho said after Ranieri was sacked by the Foxes the following season. Additionally, in a show of solidarity that is so bizarre I triple-checked that it was real, Mourinho went so far as to inscribe the initials “CR” on his shirt to honor him. The only thing more miraculous than Leicester winning the Premier League might be Mourinho transforming into Ranieri’s biggest cheerleader. 

William Gallas

More often than not, a player moving to a crosstown rival is a tense affair, but William Gallas’s transfer from Chelsea to Arsenal was compounded by some behind-the-scenes drama that preceded it. Gallas, who refused a contract extension with Chelsea and arrived late to preseason training in the summer of 2006, was accused by Mourinho of showing a “lack of respect to everybody.” The animosity went so far that Chelsea issued a statement—approved by Mourinho—claiming that Gallas threatened to deliberately score an own goal if he wasn’t allowed to join Arsenal. 

Gallas denied he’d do anything so dramatic and said the club “lacks class,” so this is one of those he-said, she-said situations in which we’ll probably never know what really happened behind closed doors. But for Mourinho and Gallas, time heals all wounds: Last month, Gallas lauded him as a “perfect manager.” This beef, at least, has simmered down.

Jesualdo Ferreira

The relationship between Jesualdo Ferreira and Mourinho goes back to the ’80s, when the former was a teacher at the Lisbon Superior Institute for Physical Education and the latter was a student. There’s no indication that Ferreira and Mourinho had problems back then, but Mourinho made his feelings about Ferreira clear when he refused to take him on as an assistant coach while managing Benfica, a position he resigned from after just 11 games in charge amid tensions with the club’s hierarchy. Though Mourinho didn’t mention Ferreira by name, a 2005 column he wrote for the Portuguese sports magazine Record Dez was the journalistic equivalent of a diss track. 

“One is a coach with a 30-year career, the other with a three-year one,” Mourinho wrote. “The one with 30 years has never won anything; the one with three years has won a lot. The one who has coached for 30 years has an enormous career; the one with three years has a small career. The one with a 30-year career will be forgotten when he ends it; the one with three could end it right now and he could never be erased from history. This could be the story of a donkey who worked for 30 years but never became a horse.” 

This is where the rivalry ends, perhaps because Mourinho had bigger managerial fish to fry. To give credit where it’s due, Ferreira did end up winning three Liga Portugal titles with FC Porto from 2006 to 2009. It might’ve taken more than 30 years, but the donkey eventually became a horse. 

Tanguy Ndombele 

The second-most expensive signing in Spurs history, Tanguy Ndombele has also gone down as one of the club’s biggest busts. Mourinho, who joined Tottenham in 2019, tried very hard to get a tune out of Ndombele—or maybe he just low-key bullied him. The main source of contention for Mourinho was Ndombele’s poor conditioning—so much so that, during the 2020 COVID lockdown, he showed up at the player’s home for an impromptu training session. 

Despite Mourinho’s efforts, Ndombele was maddeningly inconsistent at Spurs, and the manager let him know about it. “He was not injured but not feeling in a condition to play,” Mourinho explained after leaving Ndombele out in a match against Brighton, which is a roundabout way of calling your player out of shape. Following a 1-1 draw against Burnley in which Ndombele was subbed at halftime, Mourinho said: “In the first half we didn’t have a midfield. He has to know he has to do much better and know I cannot keep giving him opportunities to play because the team is much more important.” Not long after, Mourinho decided “enough is enough” with Ndombele, though his combative attitude towards Ndombele reportedly upset other players in the dressing room. 

Ndombele never panned out at Spurs, finally leaving the club when his contract expired in 2024 after spending three consecutive seasons out on loan. (During one of those loans, Ndombele reportedly had a falling out with Galatasaray manager Okan Buruk for being overweight and ordering a hamburger after a loss.) As for Mourinho publicly criticizing Ndombele’s fitness levels, well: 

Water bottles

Like the identity of the Zodiac killer or the origins of Stonehenge, we may never know why an innocent crate of water bottles incurred Mourinho’s wrath after Manchester United scored a stoppage-time winner against Young Boys in the 2018 Champions League group stage. Were the bottles filled with Dasani? Did Mourinho really have to pee but couldn’t leave the technical area? Did he have a flashback to the time he kicked a water bottle in a Premier League match and got reprimanded for it? Were they simply in the wrong place at the wrong time? Whatever the case, Mourinho’s aggressive “celebration” will forever live in infamy: 

UEFA didn’t sanction Mourinho for his antics against Young Boys—presumably because there’s nothing in the rules concerning bottle abuse. 

Paul Pogba 

One of those stars who’s never lived up to their full potential, Paul Pogba was so polarizing at Manchester United that, at one point, the fans chanted “fuck off” when he was substituted during a match in 2022. As we saw in Prime Video’s docuseries, All or Nothing: Tottenham Hotspur, Mourinho has little patience for uber-talented players deemed too inconsistent, singling out Dele Alli for criticism With that in mind, putting Mourinho and Pogba together was a ticking time bomb.

In Mourinho’s final season in charge of the Red Devils, things came to a head. After a disappointing 2-2 draw against Southampton in 2018, Mourinho reportedly likened Pogba to a virus. “You don’t play. You don’t respect players and supporters. And you kill the mentality of the good, honest people around you,” Mourinho told Pogba in front of the other United players. “You are like a person with a flu, with a virus in a closed room—you pass that virus to the others.” Pogba, meanwhile, was critical of Mourinho’s rigid tactics and how it didn’t allow the team to play to the best of their abilities. 

In the end, nobody came out of this beef a winner: Mourinho was sacked in 2018, and Pogba would leave the Red Devils in 2022 as one of the club’s most disappointing signings United, however, have only gotten worse since Mourinho and Pogba’s time at the club, missing out on European football for the first time in over a decade this season. If anyone’s a virus at Old Trafford, it’s the Glazers. 

Luke Shaw

While Mourinho and Luke Shaw were together at Manchester United, I suspect the manager’s problems with the left back stemmed from trying to sign him at Chelsea, during which the club backed off due to Shaw’s excessive wage demands. “If we pay to a 19-year-old boy what we were being asked for, to sign Luke Shaw, we are dead,” Mourinho said in 2014. “We would have killed our stability with financial fair play and killed the stability in our dressing room.” 

Later, when Mourinho took charge at United, he repeatedly criticized Shaw for both his injury record and, worst of all, what he perceived to be low footballing intelligence. In a 1-1 draw with Everton in 2017, Mourinho asserted that Shaw “used his body with my brain” during the match. “He was in front of me and I was making every decision for him,” Mourinho said. “Twenty-one is old enough to have a better understanding.” 

Mourinho continued picking on Shaw after getting sacked by United, lambasting his “dramatically bad” corner kicks at Euro 2020. “He continuously talks about me, which I find quite strange,” Shaw responded. “He just needs to move on. Hopefully he can find his peace with that and finally move on and stop worrying about me.” Can Mourinho move on from an old grievance? Well, uh, [gestures at this cosmically large blog]. 

Okan Buruk

Remember, Mourinho was so caught up in the Real Madrid–Barcelona rivalry that he poked an opposing coach in the eye—of course he brought that same intensity to Turkish football while managing Fenerbahçe. During a Turkish Cup showdown against bitter rivals Galatasaray in April, things got messy: Following a mass scuffle involving players from both clubs, three players were sent off. But the real fireworks were reserved for the fracas between Mourinho and Galatasaray manager Okan Buruk, who got pinched in the nose. Buruk reacted as any player would, theatrically tumbling to the ground like he’d been hit by cannonfire: 

Buruk was being needlessly dramatic, sure, but it’s not every day that a 62-year-old man tries to play an aggressive game of Got Your Nose. Mourinho was handed a three-match ban for the incident, but it’s just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to his antagonism in Turkey. 

The Turkish Football Federation

Managers protest referees’s decisions all the time, but Mourinho has gone full galaxy brain at Fenerbahçe: He thinks every Turkish official is against him. The animosity began when Mourinho placed his laptop in front of TV cameras to protest a VAR decision in September 2024, for which he was booked. Then, in November, he said that Fenerbahçe aren’t just playing their opponents: They have to “fight the system.” “I blame the Fenerbahçe people who brought me here,” Mourinho added about his perceived injustices in Turkish football. “They told me only half of the truth. They didn’t tell me the whole truth. If they told me the whole truth, I wouldn’t come.” For this outburst, he received a one-match ban. 

But wait, there’s more: In February, Mourinho requested a foreign referee for an important clash with Galatasaray—this preceded Nosegate—and the Turkish Football Federation actually gave him what he wanted, appointing Slovenian referee Slavko Vincic. Less than a week later, Mourinho was banned for four matches after insinuating that a Turkish referee would’ve blown their whistle when a Galatasaray player attempted to draw a foul with, in his view, a “big dive.” Galatasaray, in turn, reported Mourinho to FIFA and UEFA, alleging the comments had a racist connotation. Then [deep, exasperated sigh] Mourinho filed a lawsuit against Galatasaray for an “attack on his personal rights.” As of this writing, Mourinho is expected to remain Fenerbahçe’s manager next season; keep every referee with Turkish citizenship in your thoughts and prayers. 

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It’s been over 20 years since Mourinho first took the Premier League by storm, and all of this drama in Turkey has happened in the past 10 months. As a provocateur, Mourinho is aging like a fine wine. Hate is the fuel that keeps this man going—a feeling so powerful, so intrinsic to his being that I suspect one day it’ll transcend his corporeal form. If our spirits indeed carry on after death, Mourinho’s will haunt every manager, player, referee, doctor, and water bottle that’s ever slighted him. He will piss off whatever deity controls our universe so badly that he receives the afterlife’s equivalent of a touchline ban. “I prefer not to speak. If I speak, I am in big trouble,” he will say about the prospect of eternal damnation. 

Maybe I’m being a tad hyperbolic, but I just wrote damn near 5,000 words on someone who’s turned trolling into an art form. There’s simply no one else like him. Across his career, José Mourinho hasn’t just proved himself to be a purveyor of beef: Among haters, he truly is the Special One.

Miles Surrey

Miles writes about television, film, and whatever your dad is interested in. He is based in Brooklyn.