Don't let me down: Mourinho incites Real Madrid players to break the rules

Mourinho revealed to Karagan one of his mottos, saying: "Don't let me down. When I say don't let me down, I'm talking about football, of course. Don't let me down, and I'll always be by your side. No matter what happens."

Mourinho said: "You are a footballer 24 hours a day. That is the issue too. You train for two or three hours a day, but you are a footballer 24 hours a day. So everything affects your work: what you eat when you are not at the club, what you drink, how you sleep, and even aspects of your private life."

He added: "Unfortunately, a footballer cannot go skiing or cycling. And if he does, and there are those who do it in secret away from the club, the contract doesn't concern me. What concerns me is the way you deal with your work. If you fall off the bike, you could miss three matches. You could break your leg or suffer a concussion that prevents you from performing at your best level."

He continued: "You have a group of friends, and you are young and single, and your friends go out to nightclubs on Wednesday, Thursday and Friday evenings, but you can't go. You can only go out on the night after the match, provided you don't have another match three days later, which can happen."

Mourinho also said: "There are many things you have to give up in order to become a footballer. But in the end, your career is short. When you reach around the age of 35, you have many years ahead of you to enjoy life in another way. But football, at its core, is not a job, it's a way of life. If you consider it a hobby, you're finished. And if you consider yourself a footballer for only two hours a day, you won't reach the top. In the end, it's a way of life."

He added: "I recently watched a documentary about Nadal. And of course, he is not a footballer, but an exceptional athlete without a doubt. It is astonishing how many sacrifices he made and what he gave up in order to achieve this career. And in the end, there is always a relationship between what you achieve and what you give in order to achieve it."

Mourinho said: "There are rules and there are rules. There are non-negotiable rules. And there are other rules that I like players to break. Let me try to explain: if you must be there at nine o'clock sharp, everyone must be there at nine. If you arrive at quarter past nine, even if you're a superstar, you simply cannot do that. I don't accept and I don't tolerate breaking this simple rule."

He noted: "But during the match, if one of the players breaks the rule, thanks to his talent or creativity or intuition, and takes the risk of trying to do something different, I deal with it in the same way. I prepare for the match with my assistants and the analysts, and we try to reduce the unpredictable element in the match as much as possible. I try to put together a plan: 'Right, things will go this way. If we're ahead, I'll do this, and if we're behind, I'll do that.'"

"But when the match begins," he added, "I don't think about the analysts or the assistants. I simply have a certain intuition and I act on it. I do what I feel should be done. And if the result in the end isn't what I expected, I don't blame myself, because I did it for the team. I did it because I felt it was best."

For Mourinho, "footballers are artists. When you reach a certain level, it isn't just about your training or your academic education or what you learned at university. You have talents that God probably gave you. So let yourself be led by them and follow your instinct."

Mourinho also spoke about how to handle the stars inside a football dressing room, saying: "Those I really call superstars never have a problem with ego, because those who cause problems because of their ego are not superstars to me."

He stressed: "For me, a superstar is a complete package. And this package includes a side of the personality in which the size of the ego is proportionate to the size of the talent. But there comes a moment when they know when it is enough, and when they do not know when to stop and want to cross that line, then to me they cease to be superstars."

The Portuguese signed off with a lesson of his own: "I learn every day. I learn from the difficult moments. I learn from the people I work with, especially the players. And to win, we must work together. We have to play for each other, and to sacrifice for each other... And in the end, there is always a relationship between what you achieve and what you give in order to achieve it."

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