When Jose Mourinho came calling in the mid-to-late 2000s, players invariably listened, desperate for success under the influential Portuguese manager.
Sulley Muntari experienced exactly that in 2008. Having spent just a season at Portsmouth, where he helped Harry Redknapp’s side win the FA Cup following a £7.1m move from Udinese in 2007, the midfielder attracted plenty of attention from across Europe – not least from Jose Mourinho.
Having just arrived at Inter as Roberto Mancini’s replacement, Mourinho wanted an all-action midfielder to bolster his side. While attempts to reunite with Frank Lampard were ultimately in vain, it didn’t take long to convince Muntari to swap the south coast for Milan.
“Mourinho was in Ghana during the 2008 Africa Cup of Nations. I was also with Portsmouth at that time so we played against his Chelsea side and we were good,” Muntari told Flashscore.
A crucial player for Ghana that tournament, Muntari scored three times as they finished third at AFCON, with the midfielder also voted as an All-Star Player. That certainly piqued Mourinho’s interest further, who was out of work while watching that tournament after leaving Chelsea a few months before.
“After the African Cup, during pre-season for my second season [at Portsmouth] my agent called me and said, ‘Maybe, maybe, maybe Inter Milan will call you’.
During training, I put in some really nice crosses and Redknapp said while laughing, ‘That’s amazing.
That’s excellent. That’s why the top teams like Inter want to buy you.’
“So when I got home, the same day I got a call from Jose and he said, ‘You want to come play for me?’ I said, ‘Yes sir’.
He replied, ‘I’ll see you in Milan tomorrow’. He just put the phone down. That’s it, then I signed for Inter the next day. The rest was history.”
