Some of José Mourinho’s biggest rivals made their… absence felt in his new Netflix documentary.

The three-episode series about the former Chelsea manager and current Real Madrid coach has already made a splash in the soccer world, with the Portuguese coach revealing several previously unknown stories from his illustrious career.

One of the documentary’s biggest revelations concerns the fact that Mourinho was set to succeed Sir Alex Ferguson as manager of Manchester Unitedbefore ultimately changing his mind and returning to Chelsea.

The series features several figures closely associated with the Portuguese manager, including John Terry and Frank Lampard, as well as Ferguson himself, whom Mourinho was once expected to succeed.

In fact, Iker Casillas also makes an appearance in the documentary, despite the fact that the former Real Madrid goalkeeper had strongly expressed his opposition to the possibility of Mourinho returning to the Spanish club this past summer.

During the Portuguese coach’s tenure at Real Madrid, Casillas lost his starting goalkeeper position, while Mourinho had hinted that the Spaniard was leaking information from the locker room to the media.

But why did two of his biggest rivals refuse to be among the guests? We’re talking about Pep Guardiola and Arsène Wenger, with the Catalan and the Frenchman both notably absent for different reasons.

Pep Guardiola was reportedly open to the idea of participating in the documentary and sharing his experiences from his long-standing rivalries with Mourinho.

However, he set one key condition. Director Joe Pearlman, a British documentary filmmaker nominated for Emmys, BAFTAs, and Grammys, revealed to *The Sun*: “Yes, we reached out to Pep, who agreed to give an interview, but on the condition that José would contact him personally. You can imagine how that went.”

Meanwhile, the Frenchman was once again conspicuously absent. He and Mourinho have starred in one of the most entertaining managerial rivalries in Premier League history. Their rivalry produced several memorable moments, with Mourinho famously calling Wenger “a specialist in failure.”

But why didn’t the former Arsenal manager appear in the documentary?

The director admitted that the series’ creators didn’t even attempt to contact him. Perlman noted: “Wenger says it all in his press conferences, but the truth is that we simply didn’t go through the process of contacting him.”

Although Mourinho’s career has provided countless moments of tension and drama, it appears that some of the most significant figures in his career either did not wish to participate or were never approached by the filmmakers for the final version of the documentary.

*photo source: AP