João Tralhão was born in Lisbon on September 3, 1980, and holds a UEFA Pro Licence, the highest coaching qualification available in European football. He carries Portuguese citizenship and is represented by ISM International Soccer Management. His current contract runs until June 30, 2029, tied to his role as assistant manager under José Mourinho.
Tralhão’s career has been built almost entirely inside the Benfica academy system, where he spent close to two decades working his way up through the club’s
youth ranks. He began as an assistant coach with Benfica’s Under-17s in 2002, then took the same role with the Under-19s a year later. By 2005, he had earned his first head-coaching post with Benfica’s youth team, a job he held for two seasons before returning to an assistant position with the Under-19s from 2007 to 2011. He then took full charge of the Under-19 side in 2011, before stepping up to manage Benfica’s Youth League squad from 2013 to 2018, a post he combined with the Under-19s in his later years there. In October 2018 he briefly moved into senior football as an assistant to Thierry Henry at Monaco, working under him for 20 matches before returning to Benfica that same season to take charge of the Under-23 team.
His path into elite senior coaching began in earnest in 2020, when he took his first head-coaching role outside the Benfica system at Vilafranquense, guiding the club for 17 matches. From there, Tralhão’s career became closely intertwined with that of Nuri Şahin, serving as his assistant at Antalyaspor in Turkey during the 2023/24 season and then following him to Borussia Dortmund for the first half of 2024/25, a stretch that included 27 matches together.
His association with José Mourinho began in the 2025/26 season, first as assistant manager at Fenerbahçe, where the pairing lasted less than two months before both departed. He then followed Mourinho to Benfica in September 2025, working alongside him for 45 matches. That partnership has now carried Tralhão to Real Madrid, where he is set to begin work as assistant manager from July 1, 2026, on a contract running through to 2029.
Beyond the trophies and job titles, his record includes some notable extremes from his years coaching Benfica’s youth sides in the UEFA Youth League: an 11-1 rout over Galatasaray in October 2015 stands as his heaviest win, while a 3-0 defeat to Barcelona in April 2014, in a Youth League final, remains among his toughest results.
