Mourinho had chance to manage England

Inter Milan manager Jose Mourinho admits he considered becoming the England coach and also turned down an approach from Portugal to succeed Luiz Felipe Scolari in the summer.

Inter Milan manager Jose Mourinho admitted he considered becoming the England national team coach and also turned down an approach from Portugal to succeed Luiz Felipe Scolari in the summer. The former Chelsea manager was one of the favourites to take over after Steve McClaren was sacked following England's failure to qualify for Euro 2008. He was out of work at the time but decided he wanted to remain in club management.

"In a certain moment I considered being England manager, first of all because I was in love with the football country and with England and secondly because if you have one country where the prestige of the national manager is huge, it is England," he said. "But at the same time my passion for the day-by-day work ... that's the life I want." That is one of the reasons why he also turned down his native Portugal too. "I always had in my career project the Portuguese job but they tried to press me to do it early," Mourinho said in a video released by Ford's FeelFootball.com. "I would like to make my family proud, I'm sure one day they will be very proud when I become Portuguese national manager."

* With agencies