LISBON, Portugal (AP) \u2014 Jos\u00e9 Mourinho is about to coach in Portugal again, two decades later.<\/p>\n
Benfica said on Thursday it expected to finalize negotiations with Mourinho \u201csoon.\u201d<\/p>\n
The club notified the Lisbon stock exchange that \u201cnegotiations are underway\u201d and it \u201cexpects them to be concluded soon.\u201d<\/p>\n
Portuguese media said the club was set to reach a two-year deal with Mourinho, who has not coached in his home country since leading rival Porto to the Champions League title in 2004.<\/p>\n
Mourinho started his coaching career at Benfica in 2000 but lasted only three months before leaving in a contract dispute.<\/p>\n
He will be back in the Champions League after a five-year absence, since a round-of-16 exit while coaching Tottenham in 2020. Mourinho also won the Champions League with Inter Milan in 2010.<\/p>\n
He won the third-tier Conference League with Roma in 2022, but his time at the Italian club from 2021-24 was marked by squabbles that resurfaced in his brief and chaotic spell with Fenerbahce in Turkey. <\/p>\n
His stint with Fenerbahce came to an end last month after the Turkish club was eliminated by Benfica in a qualifying playoff of the Champions League.<\/p>\n
Mourinho confirmed on Wednesday that Benfica contacted him about its coaching vacancy and he was open to returning to the Lisbon club.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen I was confronted with the possibility of coaching Benfica, I didn\u2019t think twice, in the sense that I was interested,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Benfica fired coach Bruno Lage on Wednesday, a day after the team\u2019s 3-2 home loss to Qarabag in the Champions League. Benfica squandered a two-goal lead in front of its fans.<\/p>\n
Club president Rui Costa fired Lage citing poor results recently. Benfica drew with 10-man Santa Clara 1-1 in the Portuguese league on Friday.<\/p>\n
Benfica\u2019s next match is on Saturday in the Portuguese league at AVS. Its next Champions League game is at Chelsea on Sept. 30.<\/p>\n
___<\/p>\n
AP soccer: https:\/\/apnews.com\/hub\/soccer<\/p>\n
The Associated Press<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"LISBON, Portugal (AP) \u2014 Jos\u00e9 Mourinho is about to coach in Portugal again, two decades later. Benfica said…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":150299,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[440],"tags":[49,48,561,82],"class_list":{"0":"post-152557","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-soccer","8":"tag-ca","9":"tag-canada","10":"tag-soccer","11":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/152557","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=152557"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/152557\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/150299"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=152557"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=152557"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=152557"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}