Jose Mourinho, the man who spent 1 billion on the transfer market

The winter transfer window opened on Sunday, and several big clubs could take action. Some coaches are more spending than others. The king any category for 10 years is called José Mourinho.

Newly appointed on the Manchester United bench last summer, José Mourinho was at the origin of the arrival of Paul Pogba for the small sum of 120 million euros, the most expensive transfer in the history of soccer. The Portuguese coach completed his summer market by recruiting Henrikh Mkhitaryan and Eric Bailly, respectively for 42 and 38 million euros. An envelope of nearly 200 million euros, for one summer only.

The Special One is a habit of resounding transfers. Since June 2006, he is the technician who spent the most to buy players, and the total of his shopping gives vertigo: 990.65 million euros (for 60 players), according to the specialized site Transfermarkt. If this winter, Manchester United buys for more than ten million euros, it will thus exceed the symbolic and unbelievable bar of the billion euros. Among the other extremely expensive transfers made by Mourinho were arrivals of Shevchenko (€ 43.3 million), Costa (€ 38 million), Willian (€ 35.5 million) or Fabregas (€ 33 million) in Chelsea, and Di Maria (€ 33 million), Modric (€ 30 million) or Coentrao (€ 30 million) in Real Madrid.

Behind Mourinho, the most expensive coach is Italian Carlo Ancelotti who, since 2006, has bet € 836.05 million to buy 47 players at AC Milan, Chelsea, PSG, Real Madrid and Bayern Munich.

The Chilean Manuel Pellegrini completes the podium, with 832.95 million euros squandered for purchases of 55 players since 2006, on the benches of Villarreal, Malaga but especially Real Madrid and Manchester City. Among the very expensive arrivals under his leadership were Cristiano Ronaldo (€ 94m), Kaka (€ 65m), Xabi Alonso (€ 35.4m) and Karim Benzema (€ 35m) at Real Madrid, and Kevin De Bruyne (€ 74m), Raheem Sterling (€ 62m) and Nicolas Otamendi (€ 44.6m) in Manchester City.

Wenger in the top 10
A French technician slips into the top 10: Arsene Wenger, posted to Arsenal. The Alsatian has spent 550.81 million euros on the various mercato since 2006. Not bad for a coach reputed chilly on the transfer market. Alexander Sanchez (€ 42m) and Shkodran Mustafi (€ 41m) are the four most expensive transfers made under Wenger, which has bought a total of 50 players since 2006, including Mesut Özil (€ 47m), Granite Xhaka (€ 45m)