Mourinho’s Hilarious Reaction When One Of His Players Turned Up Five Hours Early For Training
Reuters/Adam Holt
West Ham United’s star forward, Marko Arnautovic, has revealed one of the fond memories that he shared with Jose Mourinho during the duo’s time at Inter back in the 2009-10 season.
The Austrian international had spent a year on loan at San Siro in 2009-10 campaign, when he used to play for Dutch side FC Twente. Mourinho, who was then in-charge of Nerazzurri, wasn’t really a big fan of Arnautovic, mainly because of the star’s reckless personality.
As a result, the 28-year-old was forced out of the Portuguese’s line-up, and could only accumulate three appearances for the Italian giants. In an exclusive interview with the Daily Mail, Arnautovic admitted to the fact that he used to be very unprofessional, and was seldom late for team meetings and training.
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The West Ham man recalled: “We were at Abu Dhabi for pre-season with Inter in 2009. I overslept for breakfast. Late number one.
“Then there was the team meeting. The hotel was huge and my room was on the 75th floor. I am waiting for the lift and I press and I press and still I have got seven minutes so I am ok. But then I still didn’t make it. Disaster. Number two.
“Then before we meet for the game it was happening again and I was like: ‘He is going to kill me’. So then we fought a little bit and I was out of the team that day, training on my own.”
However, the Austrian ace overcompensated for his wrong doings and revealed the farcical incident which completely changed his relationship with the Special One. Arnautovic reached the training ground five hours before the scheduled session, primarily because he thought the training was in the morning rather than the afternoon.
“Back in Milan, I thought we were training in the morning and I went in just perfect. There were no cars there. We were actually training in the afternoon that day!” he added.
But the moment that made the episode a memorable one was when the Portuguese tactician, who was already present on the pitch along with his staff, saw the striker and burst out applauding and laughing, and gave him his watch as a token of appreciation.
“Mourinho is there with his staff and he stands up and starts applauding and laughing. He said, ‘You are my man. You come here five hours before training. I love you! Here, take my watch’. I still have that watch in my house,” added the striker.
Written by Sidharth Jindal 
Sports fanatic with a passion for writing (predominantly football) and “Wants to live life to its fullest.” Writes about the Premier League on his personal blog.