Ferguson’s version of that night is a portrait of a manager coming apart on the other end of the line.
“Early evening, he phoned me and he was crying,” Ferguson says in the documentary, as recounted in the AOL write-up. “And he says, ‘Alex, I can’t take it. I’ve given my word to Chelsea and I’m not gonna break my word’.”
Hours earlier, according to Ferguson, the deal had been done. “He was offered the job, yes. I sat him down and explained the situation and, as far as I was concerned, he was accepting. And then, within hours, had changed.”
The contract ‘nobody knows’ about
Mourinho, sitting for his own interview, went further than Ferguson. He said he had actually put his name on paper.
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“When I left Real Madrid, I signed with Manchester United, to go to Manchester United after Sir Alex,” Mourinho told SportBible’s write-up of the documentary.
Why walk away from arguably the biggest job in English football with the ink already dry? Mourinho framed it as an emotional rather than a professional call.
“I think this is more powerful than love for football and, fundamentally, after Real Madrid, I needed to feel that I’m loved.”
He was not softening the loss. “For me to lose the chance to be the coach to succeed Sir Alex Ferguson was dramatic, but I don’t regret it because it was a decision I made with my heart.”
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Ferguson: ‘I was disappointed’
Ferguson’s read on the call was measured but pointed. “The reason he gave to me, I could understand. But I was disappointed.”
The three episodes, produced by double Academy Award winner John Battsek and directed by Joe Pearlman, land on Netflix on 11 August 2026, filmed over two years with the manager’s cooperation and interviews from John Terry, Zlatan Ibrahimović, Didier Drogba, Frank Lampard, Iker Casillas and Petr Čech.
What United got instead
With Mourinho gone, United handed the club to David Moyes on a six-year deal from 1 July 2013. He lasted 11 months, sacked in April 2014 with the club unable to qualify for the following season’s Champions League.
The counter-factual has hung over Old Trafford ever since.
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Second time at the Bernabéu
The documentary drops as Mourinho begins the chapter he chose not to take in 2013’s alternative history. Real Madrid announced on 11 June 2026 that Florentino Pérez’s board had agreed to appoint him as head coach for the next three seasons, until 30 June 2029, with the job starting on 13 July when preseason opened.
Thirteen years after he chose Chelsea over the letter he had signed with United, the manager who cried down a phone line to Ferguson is back at the Bernabéu.
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