Mourinho

Mourinho: I had to beg Real Madrid to let me leave

Former Real Madrid boss Jose Mourinho has revealed that the club were desperate to keep him when he made his intentions to leave known.

Now in charge of Manchester United, the Portuguese tactician has expanded upon the circumstances surrounding his departure from the Estadio Santiago Bernabeu.

"My work goes beyond taking over a football team and transforming it into an attacking team," he told Portuguese newspaper Record.

"It is about mixing a new structure and trying to make it more dynamic, which is what I'm doing in Manchester. It is an identical situation to what happened at Real Madrid.

"It is a big club with great expectations, going through a difficult period because [in Madrid] the gap with Barcelona increased more and more.

"We all felt, the club, the president, the director, that the difficult part was done and that's why they wanted me to stay. Actually, I almost had to beg them to let me leave."

Mourinho won LaLiga, the Copa del Rey and the Supercopa de Espana during his time in the Spanish capital.