Real Madrid boss praises Alex Ferguson
Real Madrid head coach Jose Mourinho has issued high praise for Sir Alex Ferguson, labelling the Manchester United manager as "fantastic".
Ferguson has been at the helm of the Red Devils for 24 years and in that time he has won 11 English Premier League titles, five FA Cups, four League Cups, nine FA Community Shields, two UEFA Champions League titles and the FIFA Club World Cup.
The Scot will turn 69 at the end of the year and, while he has no immediate plans to retire, Mourinho has been widely touted as a potential successor to Ferguson when he eventually steps down.
Though Mourinho has himself won two EPL titles with Chelsea as well as two Champions League titles and several other honours with Porto and Inter Milan, he will still have a huge reputation to live up to if he takes over from Ferguson at United.
At the League Managers' Association Hall of Fame dinner in London, at which Mourinho was the guest of honour, the Portuguese was reported by Madrid's official website as saying, "Alex Ferguson is fantastic. We belong to completely different generations,
but it doesn't seem so when we are together because we have many things in common. Every time we face each other, whether I win or he does, we end up embracing and having a little wine to celebrate our great friendship."
Meanwhile, 47-year-old Mourinho was keen to highlight how happy he was at Madrid after leading them to an unbeaten start across all competitions in the 2010-11 campaign.
Madrid have qualified for the last 16 of the UEFA Champions League with two games to spare, and maintained their lead at the top of La Liga after thrashing Athletic Bilbao 5-1 at the Bernabeu on Saturday 20 November.
Mourinho said, "I am completely happy at Real Madrid because we are building a good team, earning good results, playing well and coming up with something important, a great empathy with our fans.
"The Bernabeu gets packed, the fans fervently support us and the players feel their passion. Those things are sometimes more important than results themselves. We work to build. At Real Madrid, we feel we may be a little ahead of schedule in relation to
the time we've been working there."
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