While expressing his admiration for Lionel Messi, former manager of Roma, Real Madrid, Tottenham and Manchester United Jose Mourinho also mentioned his desire to coach Francesco Totti and Daniele de Rossi in his coaching career.
Recently, Roma fired Mourinho, and De Rossi took over as manager. When asked about players he wished he had signed, the Portuguese made it clear that he wanted to coach both De Rossi and Totti while he was at Inter or Real Madrid in an open interview with Youtuber Ohm.
While talking about a player he wished he could have coached during his long and legendary career, Mourinho went on to speak about Messi. He said, “One in particular? I don’t have a player I can tell you. Messi has never needed a coach. Who tells you ‘I coached Messi’?. It’s absurd. Messi knows everything, he was born with everything. You can only say that I had the honor of having trained him.”
During the same interview, he also spoke about his time at Roma, where his team was the Conference League champion and advanced to the Europa League final before Roma was defeated by Sevilla. He said, “There are also many bad memories. I lost two Champions League semi-finals on penalties. I lost a Europa League final on penalties because a referee decided we couldn’t win. There are so many.”