Portuguese manager José Mourinho will play in the sixth European club final of his career, the second in a row for Roma, after the Italians secured their presence in Thursday’s Europa League decider by knocking out Bayer Leverkusen.
After winning 1-0 in the first leg of the semi-finals played in Italy, Roma, which includes Portuguese goalkeeper Rui Patricio, guaranteed their presence in the final after drawing against the Germans in Leverkusen this Thursday.
A year after he led the Rome team to victory in the first edition of the European Conference League, José Mourinho will now play in the decisive game of the Europa League, in the sixth European club final as head coach, having won the previous five.
This is the second time in his career that the 60-year-old Portuguese manager has played in European competition for consecutive seasons, after doing so for the first time in 2002/03 and 2003/04 and then with Porto.
In 2002/03, Mourinho reached his first final and took Porto to the final of what was then the UEFA Cup, in a game in which the Dragons beat Celtic of Scotland 3-2 after extra time, with Derley scoring the decisive goal. target .
The following year, in the 2003/04 season, the Setúbal coach took Porto to another final, this time in the Champions League, where the Blue and Whites beat France’s Monaco 3-0.
Mourinho returned to the European final in 2009/10, then in the service of Italy’s Inter Milan, and lifted the trophy again by beating Germany’s Bayern Munich 2-0 with two goals from Diego Milito.
The next final took place in the 2016/17 season in the Europa League (formerly the UEFA Cup) in the service of Manchester United, where the Portuguese coach’s team beat Ajax 2-0.
Last season, 2021/22, already in the service of Roma, Mourinho reached his fifth final and beat another Dutch team, in this case Feyenoord, 1-0, leading the team from the Italian capital to their second European trophy in her history. , after winning the Inter-City Fairs Cup 1960/61.
With this achievement, Mourinho joins a short list of coaches who have won three different UEFA competitions, joining Italy’s Giovanni Trapattoni and Germany’s Udo Lattek.
The Portuguese also managed to become the first to win European competitions with four different clubs, with a total of 26 titles won by the various clubs he represented.
Mourinho has also been in three European Super Cups, in 2003 with Porto, in 2013 with Chelsea and in 2017 with Manchester United, but he never managed to lift the trophy.
In the Europa League final to be held in Budapest, Hungary on May 31, Mourinho will look to win a second European trophy in a row with Roma, sixth overall, to maintain a 100% winning record. European cup final.