He grabbed Robson's attention, by being a very keen student at the sport. Robson moved onto Porto in 1993, and took Mourinho with him as his assistant manager. In three years they were there, they won two titles.
In 1996, they moved onto Barcelona, winning 2 Spanish Cups and a European Cup Winners Cup. Mourinho was ready to follow Robson to England, but the English legend told Mourinho to learn more about the manager craft under the new Barcelona manager, Louis van Gaal.
Louis van Gaal had just come from Ajax Amsterdam, and had won the UEFA Cup and UEFA Champions League, and reached the finals twice in latter tournament.
With the Barcelona squad, van Gaal and Mourinho were able to bring success into domestic competition, but were unable to bring in European glory, nor have the same relationship Robson and Mourinho had, with van Gaal trying to replace Mourinho with his own coaching staff from his Amsterdam days.
Mourinho moved back to Portugal, and had a very short lived manager session with Benfica, lasting only 9 games.
He then joined Uniao de Leiria, a struggling team, and guided them to European competition. The following season, very poor results at FC Porto led to a job opening there, which Mourinho jumped at, and that same season, guided Porto to third place.
The following year, Porto won the league title, as well as the UEFA Cup. Not to be outshone by the previous year, Mourinho defended the league title, as well as winning the Champions League in 2003-04 season.
With such a huge success, clubs all over were ready to sign for Mourinho, but it was the ambition of Chelsea's that caught his interest, and signature.
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