That Jose Mourinho ball boy celebration — and an enduring link with the terraces

Lisbon, 14 February 2026 — The clock had already struck 98 minutes when Anatoliy Trubin rose above the white shirts of Real Madrid and powered a header past Andriy Lunin. The Estadio da Luz erupted, but the roar was only half the story. Seconds later, Jose Mourinho, the 63-year-old who once cleaned these same dressing-room benches as a teenage coach-in-training, tore down the touchline, coat-tails flying, and collided with a 14-year-old ball boy named Francisco Cunha. The pair spun, arms locked, faces tilted to the roof in disbelief: Benfica 4, Real Madrid 2, a Champions League play-off place snatched from the jaws of elimination.

The image froze in real time: Mourinho, mouth wide, index fingers stabbing the sky; Cunha, academy midfielder, lifelong Benfiquista, living the fantasy of every kid who has ever chased a ball around this ground. “Everyone was screaming, and we jumped and we started celebrating the goal together,” the teenager told UEFA’s mixed-zone cameras, still wearing the same fluorescent bib that had marked him out among the squad of ball retrievers. By the time he reached the changing rooms, WhatsApp had already done its work. “My friends started sending me videos. I gave an interview to Benfica FM. I still can’t believe it.”

Mourinho’s sprint was not the choreographed theatre of Old Trafford 2004 or the Camp Nou 2010; this was raw, unscripted joy. He admitted later that he had no idea where he was running until Cunha’s shoulder clipped his ribs. In that instant, the touchline dissolved into the terraces: manager and academy hopeful became indistinguishable from the 65,000 who had refused to leave until the final whistle.

Cunha is no random recruit. A central midfielder enrolled at the Caixa campus since the age of five, he has already collected regional titles at under-12 and under-13 level and scored 59 goals in 58 games over the past three seasons. Rodrigo Magalhaes, Benfica’s academy director for two decades, likens his upright, gliding stride to a young Kaka. “Before he receives, he scans one, two, three times — 360 degrees,” Magalhaes says. “It’s not just speed; it’s execution. He understands space like someone much older.” Magalhaes cautions against prophecy — he watched Bernardo Silva and Joao Felix disappear into the development shadows before re-emerging as elite talents — but admits the boy’s technique and game intelligence are “unusual” for 14.

The symbolism was not lost inside the stadium. Benfica’s policy of staffing touchline duties with academy players is deliberate: the first team feels tangible, the pathway real. CIES ranks the club as the planet’s top talent factory, with 93 graduates in Europe’s top divisions. Last night, one of them was standing on the pitch, arms wrapped around the most celebrated Portuguese coach of the 21st century.

Mourinho has history with ball boys. In December 2023, while at Roma, he handed a tactical note to a touchline helper and dispatched him on a lap to deliver it to Rui Patricio. In 2019, he lauded Tottenham’s Callum Hynes for a quick throw that sparked the goal against Olympiacos, invited the teenager to pre-match lunch, and then repeated the ritual for every subsequent home game. “I love intelligent ball boys like I was,” Mourinho told BT Sport. “He’s not there to look at the lights. He’s living the game.”

The phenomenon stretches beyond Mourinho. Liverpool’s Oakley Cannonier, 14 when he fed Trent Alexander-Arnold for the famous corner against Barcelona, is now 21 and out of contract this summer. Hearts’ Derek McInnes hugged a ball boy after a stoppage-time Edinburgh-derby winner last week. Bristol City’s Lee Johnson swung 10-year-old academy striker Jaden Neale around in 2017 after a League Cup upset of Manchester United. Each episode re-affirms the role’s quiet power: the ball kid as the last civilian link between million-pound athletes and the communities that spawn them.

Tonight, Benfica and Real Madrid meet again in the second leg. Mourinho will stride out in front of the same stands where he once celebrated as a child. Somewhere inside the stadium, Francisco Cunha will either be kicking every ball from the touchline or, if the coach has schooled him properly, hiding it. Either way, the teenager has already left an imprint on this tie — and on the enduring romance that still ties the modern game to its roots.