'With Jose, it was an education'

Cape Town - Middlesbrough manager Aitor Karanka has revealed some of the wisdom he picked up from Jose Mourinho during their time together at Real Madrid.

The Spaniard worked under the current Manchester United boss as assistant manager at Real from 2010 until 2013, before later taking charge of then Championship side Middlesbrough.

Within the space of two seasons, the 42-year-old helped engineer promotion back to the English Premiership despite the disappointment of narrowly missing out in his first season in charge.

Karanka explained how gruelling life in England's second tier can be when he told the Daily Mail, "After losing against Norwich in the play-off final, I came in for pre-season and had to stick up another 46 Championship fixtures. It was a terrible and daunting feeling. It's an assault course of a league."

However, he pointed out that it was some of Mourinho's wisdom that helped him eventually achieve success on Teesside.

"With Jose, it was an education - an incredible coach. Two things about Jose stood out. Firstly, I was unsure as to how is best to man-manage people and players," he added.

"Jose taught me that you have to be honest. He tells people frankly, to their face, what he thinks and why he has dropped them or made a big decision. Then he taught me that no player is bigger than the team."