Mourinho reveals his 'hurt' at Roma sacking - first job he took on pure emotion

Jose Mourinho has revealed his 'hurt' at being sacked by Roma because it was the first heart-over-head managerial post he'd ever taken.

The Portuguese coach won the Europa Conference League with the Italian club in 2022 and then guided them to last season's Europa League final.

But he was sacked by owners Dan and Ryan Friedkin on January 16 with Roma sitting a lowly ninth in the Serie A standings.

Mourinho, 61, said he chose Roma after turning down the opportunity to coach the Portugal national team and also in Saudi Arabia.

'I can say it was the one [exit] that has hurt me the most,' Mourinho, who is a Football.com global ambassador, told Rio Ferdinand's FIVE show.

'I gave everything, I gave my heart, I gave even some options that could be considered not very clever from the professional point of view.

'I refused some great working opportunities. The first one was very hard to refuse because it was Portugal national team, probably the best Portugal national team ever and three years before a World Cup.

'Then I had a big one from Saudi and I didn't hide it at the time because it was really big.

'I did it - normally I a very pragmatic in my choices, very professional in my choices and I try to be very emotionally controlled and you could see that when I left other clubs after winning finals.

'In this case I was not pragmatic, I was emotional and I gave everything. So in the end when I left, I left hurt. I had the great feeling that I gave so much happiness to the people.

'Two European finals in a row doesn't happen too often, especially in a club like Roma which doesn't have a big history of European success.

'Then I was walking in the street and the people were like "take us to Dublin, take us to Dublin" [for this year's Europa