Maniche recalls Porto’s UCL win and Mourinho’s pre-Man Utd team talk

Maniche’s relationship with Jose Mourinho did not exactly get off to the best of starts, but when the pair worked together at the second of three clubs, Porto, it’s fair to say that early hassle all became worth it.

Maniche, or Nuno Ricardo de Oliveira Ribeiro to give him his full name, played in six different countries, won Serie A with Inter, and helped Portugal to the 2000 Euro final and the 2006 FIFA World Cup semi-finals, but the highlight of his career undoubtedly came in 2004 when he was part of Mourinho’s Porto team which incredibly won the Champions League.

And Mourinho was such a crucial figure in Maniche’s career that he wrote the preface of his new autobiography, ‘Maniche 18’.

“Nobody knows me better than Mourinho, not just as a player but on a personal level too,” Maniche says.

“I had the privilege of being trained by him in three different clubs, he helped me massively throughout my career, and in the preface of my autobiography he described me as ‘the sweet rebel’ which shows how much he knows me so well.”

It all began when Mourinho took his first managerial job at Benfica in September 2000, stepping up from his role as assistant to replace Jupp Heynckes at the age of just 27.

He had left by December, but in his short time in charge he saw Maniche, just five years his junior, shown red cards twice. After the second sending off, Mourinho phoned his assistant to order the midfielder to run laps around the pitch.

It drove Maniche furious, but the next day at training Mourinho gave him an inspirational speech that turned the course of their relationship upside down. Within a few weeks, the midfielder’s attitude had changed drastically and he was named Benfica’s captain.

“At the beginning, it was not easy