In one match, he yelled at me aggressively:

"Do you think two beautiful passes are enough?
Do you think giving 50% of your level is enough for me?"

I took off my shirt and threw it!

He said to me:
"You're a coward! You don't want to fight harder to win over the fans! You look like a good player, but as a person... you're a coward!"

At that moment, I hated Mourinho — but in reality, I adore him… it was a lesson.

To be fair, he doesn't care about names. The most important thing Mourinho believes in is a player's will to win and his work ethic!

Even Ronaldo wasn't spared his criticism for some slacking.

I remember in one of our legendary La Liga matches, Ronaldo scored a hat-trick against Sevilla, and we won the game 6–0.

We all thought that after the match we’d receive praise!
But we were surprised when he pulled a piece of paper out of his pocket, with notes on when and where each of us lost the ball.

Then he said:
"Even the guy with the hat-trick was being careless!"

He didn’t care if you were on Maradona’s or Zidane’s level — what mattered was that you were a good person and a brave man.

Truly… he’s the best, or rather, the best coach I’ve ever worked with.

From Mesut Özil’s book, speaking about Mourinho