Jose Morinho

José Mário dos Santos Mourinho Félix (born 26 January 1963 in Setúbal) is a Portuguese football manager, currently the head coach of Real Madrid. He is commonly known as "The Special One". Mourinho is regarded by some players, coaches, and critics as one of the best football coaches of all time. Mourinho started out as a player and eventually switched to management. After spells working as an assistant manager and a youth team coach in the early 1990s, he became an interpreter for Sir Bobby Robson. He worked with Robson at Sporting Clube de Portugal and Porto in Portugal, and Spanish club Barcelona. He remained at the Catalonian club after Robson's departure and worked with his successor Louis van Gaal.

He began focusing on coaching
and impressed with brief but successful managerial periods at Benfica and União de Leiria. He returned to Porto in 2002 as head coach, winning the Primeira Liga, Taça de Portugal, and UEFA Cup in 2003. In 2004 Mourinho guided the team to the top of the league for a second time and won the highest honour in European club football, the UEFA Champions League. Mourinho moved to Chelsea the following year and won two consecutive Premier League titles in 2005 and 2006. He often courted controversy for his outspokenness, but his victories at Chelsea and Porto established him as one of the world's top football managers.

In 2008 he moved to Italy's Serie A, signing a three-year contract with Internazionale. Within three months he had won his first Italian honour, the Supercoppa Italiana, and completed the season by winning the Serie A league title. Mourinho followed the next season by winning the first treble in Italian history, the Serie A league title, Coppa Italia, and the UEFA Champions League, thus becoming the third manager in football history to win two UEFA Champions League with two different teams, after Ernst Happel and Ottmar Hitzfeld. He won the first ever FIFA Ballon d'Or Best Coach Award in 2010. On 28 May 2010, he become the head coach at Real Madrid, signing a four-year contract. His first honour with the team was winning the 2011 Copa del Rey Final, the first time Madrid had won the competition since 1993.

Source : Wikipedia

 

 

 

 

 

Cristiano Ronaldo

Cristiano Ronaldo

Cristiano Ronaldo dos Santos Aveiro, (born 5 February 1985), commonly known as Cristiano Ronaldo, is a Portuguese footballer who plays as a winger or striker for Spanish La Liga club Real Madrid and is the captain of the Portuguese national team. Ronaldo became the most expensive player in football history after moving from Manchester United to Real Madrid in a transfer deal worth £80 million (€94 million).
In addition, his contract with Real Madrid, in which he is paid €12 million per year, makes him one of the highest-paid football players in the world, and his buyout clause is valued at €1000 million (€1 billion, in English usage), as per his contract.

Ronaldo began his career as a youth player for Clube de Futebol Andorinha de Santo António, where he played for two years, before moving to Clube Desportivo Nacional. In 1997, he made a move to Portuguese giants Sporting Clube de Portugal. Ronaldo's precocious talent caught the attention of Manchester United manager Alex Ferguson, who signed the 18-year-old for £12.24 million (€15 million) in 2003. The following season, Ronaldo won his first club honour, the FA Cup and played at Euro 2004 with Portugal. Ronaldo scored his first international goal in the opening game of the tournament against Greece and also helped Portugal reach the final. He was featured in the UEFA Euro All-Star Team of this competition.

Ronaldo after won Champions League with Man-U

Ronaldo was the first player to win all four main PFA and FWA awards, doing so in 2007. He was third in the 2007 FIFA World Player of the Year award and second in the 2007 Ballon d'Or award. In 2008, Ronaldo won the Champions League with United, was named best forward and player of the tournament and was the competition's top goalscorer as well as winning the European Golden Shoe, becoming the first winger to do so, and topping the Premier League Golden Boot award. He won three of the four main PFA and FWA trophies, only missing the PFA Young Player of the Year, and was named the FIFPro, World Soccer, Onze d'Or, and the FIFA World Player of the Year, in addition to becoming Manchester United's first Ballon d'Or winner in 40 years. Ronaldo holds the distinction of being the first player to win the FIFA Puskás Award, in 2009, an honour handed by FIFA to the best goal of the year. He scored that goal from 40 yards out against F.C. Porto in a UEFA Champions League quarter-final match, while playing for Manchester United. Three-time Ballon d'Or winner Johan Cruyff said in an interview on 2 April 2008, "Ronaldo is better than George Best and Denis Law, who were two brilliant and great players in the history of United." He was second in the 2009 FIFA World Player of the Year award and also second in the 2009 Ballon d'Or award.

Ronaldo became the highest goalscorer in a season in the history of Real Madrid with 53 goals, surpassing the club's previous high of 49 by Ferenc Puskás. Six days later, Ronaldo broke the record of most goals ever scored in a season in La Liga with 40, surpassing Telmo Zarra's and Hugo Sánchez's mark (38 goals) established in 1951 and 1990, respectively. Ronaldo also broke Zarra's record of most goals per minute, with a goal scored every 70.7 minutes. The newspaper Marca, the official deliverer of the Pichichi Trophy (the top La Liga goalscorer award), claimed that Ronaldo scored 41 goals (Marca assigned one more goal to Ronaldo than La Liga, which attributed it to Pepe). By doing so, he won the European Golden Shoe award once again, becoming the first player to win the trophy in two different championships. He was third in the 2010–11 UEFA Best Player in Europe Award, behind Lionel Messi and Xavi, and second in the 2011 FIFA Ballon d'Or, behind Messi and ahead of Xavi.

Ronaldo has been described as a skillful winger who will take on any defender with his dribbling and pace; and who possesses a powerful, accurate free-kick and crossing ability. Ronaldo is able to score with his head and feet but also has been criticized for going to ground too easily.

Lionel Messi

Lionel Messi

Lionel Andrés Messi, born 24 June 1987 is an Argentine footballer who plays in La Liga for FC Barcelona and captains the Argentina national team, mainly as a forward.

Messi received Ballon d'Or and FIFA World Player of the Year nominations by the age of 21, won both the Ballon d'Or and FIFA World Player of the Year in 2009, and won the inaugural FIFA Ballon d'Or in 2010 and 2011. He also won the 2010–11 UEFA Best Player in Europe Award. His playing style and small stature has drawn comparisons to Diego Maradona, who himself declared Messi as his "successor".

Messi began playing football at a young age and his skill and potential was soon realized by Barcelona. He left Rosario-based Newell's Old Boys's youth team in 2000 and moved with his family to Europe, as Barcelona offered treatment for his growth hormone deficiency. Making his debut in the 2004–05 season, he broke his team record for the youngest footballer to score a league goal. Major honours soon followed as Barcelona won La Liga in Messi's debut season, and won a double of the league and Champions League in 2006. His breakthrough season was in the 2006–07 season; he became a first team regular, scoring a hat-trick in El Clásico and finishing with 14 goals in 26 league games. Messi then had the most successful season of his playing career, the 2008–09 season, in which he scored 38 goals to play an integral part in a treble-winning campaign. This record-breaking season was then eclipsed in the following 2009–10 campaign, where Messi scored 47 goals in all competitions, equalling Ronaldo's record total for Barcelona. He surpassed this record again in the 2010–11 season with 53 goals in all competitions.

Messi with Ballon d'Or award

Messi has won five La Liga titles, three Champions League titles, scoring in two of those finals, against Manchester United in both 2009 and 2011. He was not on the pitch as Barcelona defeated Arsenal in 2006, but received a winners' medal from the tournament. After scoring 12 goals in the 2010–11 Champions League, Messi became only the third player (after Gerd Müller and Jean-Pierre Papin) to top-score in three successive European Champion Clubs' Cup campaigns. However, Messi is the first one to win the Champions League top scorer titles for three consecutive years after Champions League changed its format in 1992. Messi is the fourth football player to win three Ballon d'Ors, after Johan Cruyff, Michel Platini and Marco van Basten and the second player to win three consecutive Ballon d'Ors, after Michel Platini (however, two of his Ballon d'Ors are FIFA Ballon d'Ors, which he won consecutively). In 2012, Messi made UEFA Champions League history by becoming the first player to score five goals in one match, in a 7–1 win against Bayer Leverkusen.

Messi was the top scorer of the 2005 FIFA World Youth Championship with six goals, including two in the final game. Shortly thereafter, he became an established member of Argentina's senior international team. In 2006, he became the youngest Argentine to play in the FIFA World Cup and he won a runners-up medal at the Copa América tournament the following year. In 2008, in Beijing, he won his first international honour, an Olympic gold medal, with the Argentina Olympic football team. At international level Messi scored 22 goals in 67 games. Despite his young age, Messi is already widely regarded by those involved in the sport to be one of the greatest players of all time, if not the greatest.