Domestic and Europeantrophy triumphs have been taken in since then, with Mourinho telling Adebayo Akinfenwa on the Beast Mode On Podcast of why he intends to add his exploits at Benfica to a distinguished roll of honour.
He said when asked about going unbeaten but missing out on tangible reward: “If you want a funny answer, and at the same time an arrogant answer... I won eight championships, but never unbeaten. So now this one counts as nine. It's not a title but it's a good feeling.
“We were never top of the league. We had a pretty good season. Porto, they lost a couple of matches, but they won, won, won, won, won, and we were winning, winning, winning, and the moment you have a draw, the distance goes a little bit. We couldn't get them but the feeling of unbeatable, of course, Arsenal (the Invincibiles team from 2003-04) are the ones in that sense, it was a good feeling.”