Jose Mourinho Snubbed Benfica Return Over Refusal to Work With ‘Donkey’

Jose Mourinho turned down a return to Benfica as he did not want to work with an assistant manager who he compared to a "donkey".

Having only been out of work last month when dismissed by Fenerbahce, Mourinho has signed a contract until 2027 to replace Bruno Lage following the club's embarrassing home Champions League loss to Azerbaijan side Qarabag.

Benfica was the 62-year-old's very first managerial job back in 2000, taking charge of 11 games and winning six after the dismissal of Jupp Heynckes.

He left in December 2000 after Vale e Azevedo had lost the Benfica presidential election to Manuel Vilarinho, who declined his request to extend his contract for another year.

Mourinho moved on to Uniao de Leiria but back in 2002, he rejected an offer to head back to Benfica because of the mooted appointment of assistant Jesualdo Ferreira.

Jose Mourinho is returning to Benfica for a second time. Image: Getty

As relayed by The Guardian, Mourinho had crossed paths with Ferreira, who was a teacher at Lisbon Superior Institute for Physical Education in the early 1980s when he was a student.

But despite his vast experience in the game, he was strongly against having Ferreira as his right-hand man - a suggestion from the club after his two spells in the role.

"My ideas about the coaching staff were well defined," Mourinho explained in his 2003 autobiography.

"Baltemar Brito and Rui Faria would definitely come with me from Leiria. "[The goalkeepers' coach] would be replaced and I also wanted to work with [my former assistant at Benfica] Carlos Mozer again. So I could not find a place to fit Jesualdo Ferreira."

Vilarinho expanded on Mourinho's refusal, revealing exactly what Mourinho told him in the two meetings they held.

"We met twice and in both meetings we failed to reach an agreement because of Mourinho's unwillingness to accept Jesualdo Ferreira as his assistant," he said.

"In the second meeting he told me: 'And what if in a training session I have to use the F-word? I would be ashamed of saying it in front of the professor.'

"But of course that was only an excuse. He just did not want to work with Jesualdo Ferreira but I felt we could not let Jesualdo go again. To me, people come first and I don't regret it."

In the end, Mourinho walked away and took the reins at Porto, where he went on to make his name and won the UEFA Cup, Champions League and two league titles.

Ferreira also went on to manage Porto, among a whole host of clubs in Portugal, and won three straight league titles between 2007 and 2009.

But Mourinho was never a ban fan of Ferreira and appeared to aim a dig at him in February 2005 during a column for Portuguese magazine Record Dez where he did not pull any punches.

Ferreira had an impressive managerial career. Image: Getty

"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."

79-year-old Ferreira had his most recent job in Egypt as manager of Zamalek for the second time, having also managed Santos, Al Sadd, Malaga and Panathinaikos in a well-travelled career.