Newcastle United made an offer to bring Jose Mourinho to St. James' Park, but the Special One rejected them.
Mourinho is set to return to management after a brief stint out of the game and will play Newcastle in the Champions League this autumn, with Fabrizio Romano revealing in a post on X (formerly Twitter) that Benfica are close to re-appointing their former boss.
But things could have been very different with Mourinho on Tyneside in the Premier League – with his arch-rival Pep Guardiola once keen to link up with the Magpies, too.
Newcastle United offer for Jose Mourinho revealed – Pep Guardiola could have gone to St. James' Park, too
Mourinho and Guardiola – ranked at no.12 and no.5 respectively in FourFourTwo's list of the greatest managers ever – first met at Barcelona in the 1990s, when Sir Bobby Robson replaced Johan Cruyff, bringing the Portuguese as his interpreter to Camp Nou.
In the documentary, Bobby Robson: More Than A Manager, Guardiola revealed that he wrote to Robson while a player at Barça, asking for a chance to join his mentor in the Premier League and fulfill a dream of playing in England.
“He answered me and said it was not possible because he had a lot of quality and he was right, but, even in that tough moment, he was always so kind,” Guardiola explained, adding, “He wrote a simple letter and it was like it meant so much more.”
The tables were turned, however, a few years later, when Mourinho revealed in a book that Robson asked him to accompany him at Newcastle for an assistant manager role.
“He knew my ambition wouldn't allow me to accept an assistant coach role,” Mourinho wrote about his offer from Robson before he became Benfica manager in 2000 – as relayed by the BBC in 2004.
“Since Bobby suspected I wouldn't accept it, he told me it would only be for a year, two tops, and that at the end of that time I would be head coach and he club manager. But he had forgotten that I had worked with him for many years and so I knew him well.
“It is unthinkable to picture him as a manager, watching from the stands. But I didn't take him up on his offer, knowing sooner or later, my time would come."
Mourinho been sporadically linked with a role in the St. James' Park dugout ever since and has always spoken well of the Magpies, paying tribute to Robson in 2020 when he recorded his first win in the city as manager of Tottenham Hotspur.
“I can leave the stadium and pass Mr Robson's statue and laugh with him,” the Special One said after the win.
