Lineker vs Mourinho - Secret feud, awards snub and brutal text to Man Utd chief
Ask the average fan to write a list of Jose Mourinho's footballing enemies and you'd be well-stocked.
Arsene Wenger, Pep Guardiola, Luke Shaw, Paul Pogba, Anthony Taylor - the list goes on. But before his revelation this week, the name of former England star-turned-television icon Gary Lineker would be a rarity.
Lineker, 63, recently revealed that he and the self-proclaimed Special One have had a secret feud which has lasted nearly nine years. When Mourinho first arrived on English shores in 2004, having just won the Champions League in miraculous fashion with Porto, Lineker - like most progressive pundits - immediately gravitated towards him.
"I remember when he first came," Lineker recalled on The Rest Is Football podcast. "He was this incredible personality, really engaging and I thought he was witty and he was funny. I think the game has beaten him up a little over the years.
"I did a little documentary with him, he used to text me all the time, he used to text me after Match of the Day, saying 'you guys understand it, this is great'. We had been going along like that for two years and then something changed."
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In September 2015, three months prior to Mourinho being sacked by Chelsea for the second time, he was due to be crowned one of the Men of the Year at the annual GQ Awards and Lineker had been chosen to present him with the accolade.
Surely this would be a nice moment between two household names in English football? Well, it might've been had Mourinho not opted for Claudia Winkleman instead.
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Gary Lineker and Jose Mourinho got on well until 2015 (REX/Shutterstock)"I said, 'Yes, I'll do that for Jose, of course'," Lineker explained. "Then about four days before the event, they got in touch and said, 'Jose has got in touch and he doesn't want you to present the trophy to him, he wants someone that's not in football'.
"I thought, 'Hmmm, that's a bit odd' but I thought I'll go along to the event anyway, and I went up to Jose and he kind of blanked me. I went, 'are we okay, are we okay, Jose?' He went, 'Yeah, yeah, yeah'.
"But he wasn't okay and he's never been okay since."
So what caused this fracture in the pair's relationship? Asked by Alan Shearer and Micah Richards, his podcasting co-hosts, the former Tottenham and Barcelona striker decided to recount another incident involving Mourinho and his former boss at Manchester United, Ed Woodward, who Lineker knows "really well."
Jose Mourinho won the GQ Special Editor's Award in 2015 (David M. Benett/Dave Benett/Getty Images)
Gary Lineker had been due to present him with it, but Jose Mourinho refused (Mark Cuthbert/UK Press via Getty Images)"I do not know to this day whether it was something I said on Match of the Day, I genuinely have no idea," Lineker replied. "I have interviewed him subsequently and he was very cold.
"I remember doing a Champions League game which they didn't do very well in. I went up to the directors' bit at Manchester United and I was having a drink with Ed Woodward, he's a neighbour of mine so I know him really well.
"I'm stood there having a drink and Jose comes up but then he just wandered off. He sent a text to Ed Woodward, 'Why are you talking to him?' To this day, I don't know what I did! It is a long time ago this happened but I don't know what happened."
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During Mourinho's final months at United, around the time of the aforementioned Champions League fixture, the Portuguese fired a dig at Lineker after he criticised Mourinho's dramatised reaction to a Marcus Rashford miss. "If I saw my manager react like that, I would be absolutely livid," Lineker declared on BT Sport.
"Turn to the crowd and your own bench and shake your head in disgust at one of your own players, let alone a youngster. You just don't do that as a coach."
In response, Mourinho said: "I would invite those people to sit on the bench as manager. But I think maybe it's better to have lots of holidays in Barbados and go to the television screens and touch the electronic dummies.
"This is much more comfortable than being on the touchline like we managers are. I'm pretty sure a proper manager would never criticise another one for emotional reactions on the touchline because it's deja vu for them. For the ones that have a nice life, it's different."
Former Manchester United executive vice-chairman Ed Woodward (left) is one of Gary Lineker's neighbours (Dave Benett/Getty Images for The Brown Dog)When Mourinho was eventually sacked by Woodward and co in December 2018, Lineker notably tweeted: "Would imagine one of the main reasons for sacking Mourinho now would be to stop the attempted mass exodus of their best players next month."
The following season, when Mourinho returned to Old Trafford as a pundit to witness United's 4-0 victory over Chelsea under his successor, Ole Gunnar Solskjaer, Lineker went in on him again, this time more savagely. "This is definitely Man Utd's best performance with Mourinho at Old Trafford," he quipped.
Lineker has since fired various thinly-veiled digs at Mourinho during his subsequent spells with Spurs and now Roma.
Jose Mourinho has managed Roma for two-and-a-half seasons (Paolo Bruno/Getty Images)Perhaps Mourinho will one day share his side of the story, especially if he returns to management in the Premier League. The 60-year-old will soon be out of contract in the Italian capital, with Roma's owners reported to only be offering him a one-year extension, with the option of a second if the Serie A giants qualify for the Champions League.
This season, Mourinho has his side languishing in eighth place, not even high enough for a Conference League spot. Roma have won just two of their last six games in all competitions, with Mourinho being shown a red card in last two.
At least Lineker isn't alone in being an enemy of the Special One.
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