Jose Mourinho completes unique European treble with AS Roma’s Conference League triumph
The ‘Special One’ Jose Mourinho proved his managerial credentials once again, helping Italian side AS Roma lift the inaugural UEFA Conference League title by defeating Feyenoord in the final on Wednesday.
Having already won the UEFA Champions League and UEFA Europa League titles, the Conference League title helped Mourinho bag an unprecedented ‘European treble’.
Though it was only the first season featuring the Conference League in Europe, Mourinho’s managerial achievements gave him the opportunity to register his name in history books with Roma’s 1-0 victory over Feyenoord being Mourinho’s 5th European final.
The Portuguese, for a fact, hasn’t lost a single one of these 5 finals. Mourinho had first won the Europa league (then called UEFA Cup) with Portuguese giants Porto in 2002-03 and then bagged Champions League in 2003-04 before repeating the feat with Inter Milan in 2009-10. His second Europa League triumph came with Manchester United in 2016-17.
“There are so many things going through my head. So many things at the same time,” Mourinho said while fighting back tears on Sky Sport Italia.
“I’ve been at Roma for 11 months, I realised the moment I arrived what it meant, they were waiting for this. As I told the lads in the locker room in Turin, we did what we needed to do, qualify for the Europa League. We had great work all season.
“This was not work tonight, this was history. We had to write history. We wrote it.”
It was the first European title for Roma, ever. Though the club had won the Fairs Cup in 1960s, the competition wasn’t recognised back then.
Though there remain rumours linking the former Real Madrid and Manchester United manager to PSG and Newcastle United, he has pledged to stay in Italy for another season at least.
“Now I am staying, there are no doubts. Even if some rumours emerge, I only want to remain at Roma. We must understand what our owners, who are fantastic people, want to do next season, because this is history, but we can build a really strong project with honest professionals.
“We need to sit down and understand what the plan is for next season,” he added.
Mourinho is also only the third manager to win trophies in three different decades, with Sir Alex Ferguson and Giovanni Trapattoni being the other two.
