Sulley Muntari and Jose Mourinho
Ghana’s only player to win a treble in Europe, Sulley Ali Muntari, has disclosed how he landed a move to play for Portuguese coach Jose Mourinho at Inter Milan.
Muntari was in the best form of his life playing for English Premier League side, Portsmouth when he got an offer to play for Inter Milan.
The tough-tackling Ghanaian midfielder had just joined the Premier League from Serie A side, Udinese. He soon became an active member of the Portsmouth starting XI and his manager Harry Redknapp did not want to let go of him despite earing a lot of offers from top European clubs.
"I don't want to sell him. He is one of my best players and is a terrific young talent" Harry Redknapp told Sky Sports News when interests from Inter Milan popped up in the press.
Muntari had harboured dreams of playing in the EPL and just when he was settling in, he received an offer to return to the Serie A for a good offer.
Muntari played an instrumental role in scoring the winner from the penalty spot in a 1–0 victory to knock out Manchester United in the Sixth Round of the FA Cup at Old Trafford. And later succeeded in helping Portsmouth win the 2008 FA Cup Final at Wembley Stadium over Cardiff City.
His selfless style of play had earned the interest of former Chelsea boss, Jose Mourinho who had just joined Inter Milan. The former FC Porto manager wanted a player just like Michael Essien to fill a spot at Inter since the Blues were unwilling to sell any player to their former boss.
After several negotiations on Muntari’s deal, it took a single phone call from the ‘Special One’ for Muntari to move back to Italy.
“I had returned from training and I was home and he called my phone and said it’s me Mourinho and he said, how are you? And I said good,” Sulley Muntari said on McBrown's Kitchen.
Muntari recalls Mourinho asking, “do you want to play for me and I said yes sir and he said okay, I will see you in Milano.”
“We just parked our bags right away and we just flew to Milan and then I signed, that was it,” Muntari added.
In 2009-10 season Muntari won the Serie A, Coppa Italia and UEFA Champions League under Jose Mourinho before the two parted ways from the club.
