Mourinho says he considered England job

Jose Mourinho says he was flattered by links with the vacant job as England coach but wanted continue his career in club football. He also turned down the Portugal job for similar reasons.
Jose Mourinho

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Jose Mourinho: One-time favourite for role with two national teams.
The Inter Milan boss was touted as a potential successor to Steve McClaren but revealed the lure of day-to-day involvement proved too great.

"In a certain moment I considered being England national manager," said Mourinho, who was out of work at the time of McClaren's departure in the face of exit from Euro 2008. Having left Chelsea in September last year, Mourinho was heavily backed at to take the job but chose to chase his ambitions of continental management, which he eventually realised with his summer appointment at San Siro.

First of all because I was in love with the football country and with England - I was also happy there - and secondly because if you have one country where the prestige of the national team manager is huge, it is England.

"But at the same time my passion for the day-by-day work, my passion to train every day, my desire to play every week and if possible more than one game a week, this is my life. That's the life I want to have."

Mourinho confirmed that he had been approached by his own country ahead of their appointment of Carlos Queiroz.

"I always had in my career project the Portuguese national team job as one of the last moments of my career but they tried to press me to do it early," Mourinho said in a video released by Ford.

"Sometimes you have to jump out of this road you built - but they understand that I cannot do it now.

"But I want to have the experience of coaching my country one day. I would like to make my family very proud, and I'm sure one day they will be very proud when I become Portuguese national manager.

"I [prefer] club [over country] because at this moment I'm a club manager and it's the kind of job I enjoy.

"The national team job is not the kind of job that motivates me - it's a completely different profile.