'This one counts as nine!' - José Mourinho jokes he's added unbeaten season with Benfica to his list of titles as he matches Arsenal feat

Mourinho returned to where it all began for him as a coach in September 2025 - having first taken the reins at Estádio da Luz in 2000. He suffered no defeats in Primeira Liga action, but still saw Benfica finish the campaign in third place - eight points adrift of champions Porto.

That prize was previously collected on a couple of occasions during his own stint at Estádio do Dragão, while three Premier League titles were secured across two spells in charge of Chelsea. The Serie A crown was captured in back-to-back seasons at Inter, before Real Madrid were guided to La Liga glory in 2011-12.

Domestic and European trophy triumphs have been taken in since then, with Mourinho telling Adebayo Akinfenwa on the Beast Mode On Podcast of why he intends to add his exploits at Benfica to a distinguished roll of honour.

He said when asked about going unbeaten but missing out on tangible reward: “If you want a funny answer, and at the same time an arrogant answer... I won eight championships, but never unbeaten. So now this one counts as nine. It's not a title but it's a good feeling.

“We were never top of the league. We had a pretty good season. Porto, they lost a couple of matches, but they won, won, won, won, won, and we were winning, winning, winning, and the moment you have a draw, the distance goes a little bit. We couldn't get them but the feeling of unbeatable, of course, Arsenal (the Invincibiles team from 2003-04) are the ones in that sense, it was a good feeling.”

Mourinho has won major honours in Portugal, England, Italy and Spain. His coaching stock soared while calling the shots at Porto, with some of his happiest memories made during that tenure.

He said of hoisting the iconic Champions League trophy aloft for the first time in 2004: “The memory was like we did something incredible. The fact is since then - 2004, 2026 - a Portuguese club never won again. A Portuguese club never played a final again. A Portuguese club never played a semi-final again. So that gives you the dimension of what we did. It was like touching the sky.”

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José Mourinho spoke to Beast Mode On Podcast as part of his partnership with Coca-Cola, whose Jose vs Mourinho project sees two AI versions of the iconic coach go head-to-head discussing World Cup topics daily throughout the finals.