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Cape Town - Former Chelsea manager Andre Villas-Boas admits he idolised Jose Mourinho before falling out of favour with the Portuguese tactician at Inter Milan.
The 38-year-old served as Mourinho's assistant for several years and says he was always focused on learning all he could from his countryman during their time together at Porto and Chelsea.
However, their partnership came to a bitter end in Italy, with Villas-Boas departing Inter after things turned sour between to the pair.
Villas-Boas subsequently took up the reins at Portuguese outfit Académica de Coimbra, where he managed to steer the Primeira Liga outfit clear of relegation with an attractive brand of football.
We went on to manage Porto, Chelsea and Tottenham, spending just one season at each of the aforementioned clubs, before spending two seasons with Zenit St Petersburg.
And having had time to reflect on his career after parting ways with Zenit in May, Villas-Boas has admitted his ill-fated spell at the helm of Chelsea came too soon in his career.
"The Chelsea experience was too much too soon," he told ASPIRE4SPORT. "I wasn't flexible as a manager at that time. I was communicative, but I wasn't flexible in my approach.
"In professional football you have to live the day-to-day. The objective is the group performance, but every single individual requires a different response from a manager - you can't be the same person to each player.
"At Chelsea the group was more important, I stuck to my methods too much."
Commenting on his falling out with Mourinho, Villas-Boas added: "You fall in love with him and he becomes your idol.
"I wanted to be like him, know everything that he knew and absorb all the information he was giving.
"Then you fall on the wrong side of Jose and that's when things change and you realise that you've been blinded by someone.
"He has this fascinating capability of getting the best out of you, which has good or bad consequences for people," he concluded.
