The harsh advise that Manchester United’s Scott McTominay received from Jose Mourinho after his first training session with the Portuguese coach has been made public.
The 27-year-old midfielder started his youth career with the Red Devils in 2002 and has been at the club for 21 years.
After breaking into the United team seven years ago, McTominay has scored 25 goals in 233 games for the club.
During an interview with Jake Humphrey on his High Performance Podcast, McTominay talked about the time he spent under Mourinho and emphasized the importance of the manager to his United career.
McTominay was given the opportunity to impress Mourinho in a training session because a few stars were away on international duty. However, the Scottish midfielder left training wondering whether he would ever be asked back.
Sharing the anecdote, he said: ‘When I first went over, maybe at the start of the 2017 season, I was going over to train with Jose and there were a lot of lads on international break.
‘Refs [in training] are always a little bit biased to the first team vs the young lads and I was losing my temper, raising my voice a little bit too much.
‘It’s probably the right thing to do but also wrong thing to do. I was arguing with some of the older players – [Michael] Carrick and [Ashley] Young – and I was just saying you’re getting all the decisions, no wonder we’re losing.’
‘Mourinho spoke to me and said you need them to like you you cant make them think you’re a ******. He dressed me down to be fair and said who do you think you are, you’ve done nothing.
‘It turned out a couple of months down the line the fitness coach told me Jose was just testing you out and I knew it. It was nice to hear [positive words] and that he was trying to test the group.’
McTominay acknowledged that Mourinho made a huge impact on his football career:
‘ You just can’t get carried away because you can get humbled so quick. I was lucky he [Jose] came and gave me my chance.
‘I owe him a great deal and my family love him. When I was going to play for Scotland, because I always wanted to play for Scotland for my grandpa, Jose was always saying go with my heart. I’m always here for any decisions to talk about.
‘As he was leaving, I walked into his office. I was gutted. It was hard, like, this guy meant so much to me and gave me all my dreams and now he’s gone.
‘I just said thank you so much for the opportunity you’ve been a real life legend for me. Good luck for what you do next. We’ve kept in touch since. I’m so grateful for him. The power of self-belief. He instilled that in me.’
