José Mourinho: Reflections on Finals and His Return to Real Madrid

José Mourinho has lived enough nights in football to fill a library. Titles in four countries, a 26-year career on the touchline, a catalogue of finals. Yet when he is asked to name the one match he would replay, his answer comes back in a heartbeat.

“Roma - Sevilla, Europa League final. Without Anthony Taylor.”

The sting of Budapest still bites.

The one that got away

Mourinho’s Roma had become a force in Europe, punching above their financial weight and feeding off a city’s obsession. He dragged the Giallorossi to back-to-back European finals, first conquering the inaugural Europa Conference League in 2022 against Feyenoord, then falling, on penalties, to Sevilla in the Europa League showpiece a year later.

That night against Sevilla brought his first defeat in a European final. It did not pass quietly. Roma raged against a Premier League-based officiating team led by Anthony Taylor, Mourinho taking his fury from the touchline into the bowels of the stadium and, ultimately, into the public consciousness. The result is long filed, careers have moved on, but the emotions clearly have not.

Now, as he prepares for a second spell at Real Madrid, he still circles that game as the one he would change. Not the tactics. Not the penalties. The referee.

A city set alight

For all the grand stages he has strode across, it is Rome that Mourinho keeps returning to when the conversation turns to pride. Not Porto’s miracle Champions League run. Not Inter’s treble. Not his early domination with Chelsea.

“When we won the Conference League in Roma, that city went mad,” he recalls.

The competition was new, its prestige still questioned, its place in the European hierarchy under debate. Roma and Mourinho treated it like a gateway to something bigger.

“I believe that we did to that city what Champions League winners cannot do in other cities,” he says. In Rome, the club is a civic heartbeat, not just a badge. “Roma is a city where people are really, really, really in love with that club. A giant club with incredible passion. Absolutely incredible.”

The Conference League trophy, for many, was a third-tier prize. In the Italian capital, it detonated like a title. Mourinho ended an 11-year wait for major silverware, and the reaction told him everything about what he had given those supporters.

“When we arrived in Rome and we went for the parade around the Colosseum, Circus Maximus, you realise what you gave to those people.” It was not just a bus ride. It was a coronation, an outpouring, a release.

That night, he completed a unique UEFA treble: Champions League, UEFA Cup/Europa League, and Conference League. The record books noted the achievement. Rome simply roared.

Anfield, Bernabéu and the next chapter

Mourinho has stood in some of football’s most intimidating arenas, but one ground still stands apart in his mind. When asked for the most challenging away venue of his career, he points straight to Anfield. The home of Liverpool, with its noise, its history and its sense of occasion, remains the stadium that tests a coach’s nerve like no other.

Now his path leads back to a place he knows well. Real Madrid. The Bernabéu. A three-year contract. A second chance to leave his mark on the club that already bears his fingerprints from 2010 to 2013, when he wrestled La Liga and the Copa del Rey away from Barcelona’s dominance.

He calls it the best dressing room, and it is hard to argue. Jude Bellingham, Kylian Mbappé, Vinícius Júnior: a trio that looks purpose-built for a manager who thrives on big personalities and bigger stages. He has won major honours in Portugal, England, Italy and Spain. The demand now is to restore Madrid to another relentless trophy run, to channel that fire one more time.

The memories are already stacked high. The Conference League parade past the Colosseum. The raw pain of Budapest. The noise of Anfield. The glare of the Bernabéu.

The question, as he walks back into Madrid, is simple: at 26 years into his career, how many more nights can José Mourinho still bend football to his will?