Former Real Madrid star Fernando Hierro has claimed Jose Mourinho had the most power at the club that any manager has enjoyed in the last 20 years.
The Portuguese boss, who won La Liga and the Copa del Rey in his three-year stint in the Spanish capital, had a difficult final season in which Los Blancos failed to land a major trophy, and was overshadowed by a number of high profile fallings-out with players, other coaches, and officials.
Mourinho left the Santiago Bernabeu dugout in May and is now in charge of a former side of his, Chelsea.
Speaking about the former manager’s time in Madrid, Hierro said: “Every club is different and Madrid is even more so. Madrid is a club where you have to win and it’s a place that can wear you down – where people have a different way of thinking.”
He told Fifa.com that he believed Mourinho enjoyed the most power at the club compared to any other manager in the last two decades.
But he added: “If you ask him though, perhaps he’d say he didn’t have as much authority as he’d have liked. But everyone knows him perfectly.”
