JOSÉ MOURINHO

Up Close and Personal

Robert Beasley

JOSÉ MOURINHO: Up Close and Personal is the gripping biography of the new Manchester United manager by a writer who has unique insight into Mourinho, both on and off the pitch. 

This remarkable account of the private man and public manager begins at Old Trafford in 2004, when Mourinho’s Porto put Manchester United out of the Champions League. Since then, author Robert Beasley has enjoyed unparalleled access and unrivalled experiences with Mourinho, both on a professional basis and on a personal level.

Touring alongside Mourinho during his first tenure at Chelsea, Beasley forged a friendship with the manager that has lasted to this day. He reveals how close Mourinho came to becoming England’s manager, and Tottenham’s attempts to secure him. He discloses the shocking depths of Mourinho’s dislike of Arsenal boss Arsène Wenger, and how his relationship with Chelsea owner Roman Abramovich really played out behind the scenes. Then there are all the intriguing football stories – the players he bought, those he desperately wanted, but couldn’t get, and life behind closed doors at the biggest football clubs in the world.

Robert Beasley is one of the nation’s best-known sports writers, and is renowned for breaking big, exclusive stories and delivering dynamic interviews with some of sport’s biggest names. This definitive biography, written by the one man allowed inside José Mourinho’s inner sanctum, draws on Beasley’s many years of friendship with one of the most unpredictable, charismatic and brilliant football managers the game has ever known.