José Mourinho wants to mark his 1,000th game as a manager by giving Daniel Levy a trophy to celebrate after running Tottenham for 20 years.
Spurs have won nothing apart from the 2008 League Cup under Levy, who marks two decades at the club this week, despite the chairman overseeing a period of financial growth off the pitch. It is believed that one of the reasons that the 59-year-old made the controversial decision to replace Mauricio Pochettino with Mourinho in November 2019 was because he wanted more silverware.
Mourinho, who reaches a milestone of his own later this season, is conscious of Levy’s thirst for glory. Although the Spurs manager feels that his chairman should not be judged on trophies alone, he said that he wants to give him a special anniversary. There is a chance that Mourinho’s 999th game in management – currently he has 988 under his belt – could arrive when Spurs, who host the first leg of their last-16 Europa League tie against Dinamo Zagreb on Thursday evening, face Manchester City in next month’s EFL Cup final.
“I don’t think sometimes it’s fair for an owner, CEO, administrator, a president of a club to be judged on trophies because trophies many times depend on others,” Mourinho said. “The work done in this club independent of the trophies that the club didn’t get is undeniable. The club is a big club in many aspects. That’s an incredible work from him as the big boss and the whole structure that works for him.
“But the trophies are the salt and pepper of football and I would love to help that to happen. I’m not a big guy on stats but my 1,000th official match is going to arrive this season too for a career where I’ve been lucky enough to win so many things. It would be nice for him to celebrate my 1,000 official matches winning a trophy for Tottenham.”
Spurs have won their past four games in all competitions. Their improvement has coincided with more opportunities for Gareth Bale, who has six goals in his last six appearances. Bale is gaining sharpness after a slow start to his second spell at Tottenham. The winger has started four consecutive games and was excellent in Sunday’s win over Crystal Palace, though Mourinho does not want to risk the 31-year-old’s fitness.
“I want the momentum to keep going but we have to manage him,” Mourinho said. “The other day during the match [against Palace] I found Andre Marriner, the fourth official, laughing at us because probably he found my conversation with Gareth funny. We were saying how many more, five minutes more, 10 minutes more? With Gareth the relationship is really good. I would like him to be on the pitch 90 minutes of every match. It is not possible.”
