Mourinho considered England

Former Chelsea manager Jose Mourinho has admitted he thought about becoming England coach and also turned down an approach from Portugal to succeed Luiz Felipe Scolari.

The Internazionale boss was one of the bookmakers' favourites to take over England's top post after Steve McClaren was sacked following its failure to qualify for Euro 2008.

Mourinho was out of work at the time, having left Chelsea in September last year, but decided he wanted to remain in club management.

"In a certain moment I considered being England national manager, first of all because I was in love with the football country and with England - I was also happy there - and secondly because if you have one country where the prestige of the national team manager is huge, it is England," he said.

"But at the same time my passion for the day-by-day work, my passion to train every day, my desire to play every week and if possible more than one game a week, this is my life. That's the life I want to have."

That is one of the reasons why he also turned down his native Portugal when it approached him about succeeding Chelsea-bound Scolari - a job which was later taken by former Manchester United assistant manager Carlos Queiroz.

"I always had in my career project the Portuguese national team job as one of the last moments of my career but they tried to press me to do it early," Mourinho said in a video released by Ford's FeelFootball.com.

"Sometimes you have to jump out of this road you built - but they understand that I cannot do it now.

"But I want to have the experience of coaching my country one day. I would like to make my family very proud, and I'm sure one day they will be very proud when I become Portuguese national manager.

"I [prefer] club [over country] because at this moment I'm a club manager and it's the kind of job I enjoy.

"The national team job is not the kind of job that motivates me - it's a completely different profile."