The Portuguese thinks the Three Lions have enough quality to reach the showpiece, but has warned that they cannot allow complacency to creep in
Jose Mourinho said he'd been singing 'It's coming home' after England's victory against Germany and backed Gareth Southgate's side to go on and make the Euro 2020 final.
England beat Germany 2-0 in their Round of 16 tie at Wembley on Tuesday thanks to goals from Raheem Sterling and Harry Kane.
The Three Lions can now look ahead to a favourable quarter-final showdown against Ukraine, with Mourinho now extremely optimistic about their chances of progressing all the way through to the showpiece event.
What's been said?
If Southgate's men see off Ukraine they will be rewarded with a last-four clash against either the Czech Republic or Denmark, and the former Chelsea and Manchester United boss can't envisage them losing against any of those three sides if they're at their best.
Mourinho did, however, also warn that England can't afford to get complacent as he appeared on talkSPORT while admitting to singing along to one of the country's most famous anthems.
“I’m singing ‘it’s coming home’ to show my happiness,” said the Portuguese tactician, who will embark on the next stage of his managerial career at Roma next season. "But it’s not yet coming home.
“England need balance in the bad moments and in the good moments. The same way the media is critical in the bad moments, we have to be balanced now, there’s still a long way to go.
“In the normal conditions England are going to be in the final, because I don’t see them losing against the teams they could face in the next rounds. But we must respect football and the unpredictability. France are not in the quarter-finals because they didn’t respect the game in the final ten minutes.
“I’m very, very pleased. I just hope it ends well, I hope it comes home. But football is football. So I would say to them calm down and just focus on the next game.
“But, in my opinion, England are ready for anything and I will be very disappointed if we don’t make the final, because we should, we should, we definitely should.”
Mourinho's praise for Southgate
More than a few eyebrows were raised when Southgate opted to play three at the back against the Germans while starting with star trio Jack Grealish, Phil Foden and Mason Mount on the bench, but Mourinho has hailed the Three Lions boss for his bold selection calls.
“I would always respect Gareth’s decision,” he added. "England have had three clean sheets playing with a back four and then you play against this Germany team and I felt deeply, I analysed the Germany vs Portugal [4-2 group] game very deeply and Germany killed Portugal because they played with a back four and they couldn’t control the wing-backs, period.
“Today when England decided to play with three at the back, it’s not like they don’t have the tactical knowledge and the coach just decided to do it. They worked really hard and the team was very, very solid.
"We have Trippier closing down the space on the inside, the wing-backs won their duels, Shaw controlled Kimmich and Tripper did the same, the two midfielders were giants, everybody worked really hard for the team.
"I think it was a very good decision by Gareth to play this way. And then in the right moment, it couldn’t be a better moment to do it [score] with ten minutes to go, and then the little bit of luck in that one-on-one with [Thomas] Muller.
“And then the bench is incredible, full of options. We forget players who did not play one single minute and they’re all good players – [Marcus] Rashford, [Jadon] Sancho, [Jude] Bellingham, [Phil] Foden, all these guys are ready to play.”