Jose Mourinho backs Arsene Wenger in his assessment of Ballon d'Or

Jose Mourinho has finally found some common ground with Arsenal manager Arsene Wenger after the Portuguese national sided with the Frenchman in their repugnance of the Ballon d'Or.

The Portuguese manager revealed that football is not about the individual but about the team and awarding someone for helping the team is not justified. Cristiano Ronaldo won the award this year, superseding Lionel Messi for what is ostensibly football's biggest individual award.

Wenger has also been vocal about the inconsequential nature of the award over the years and has only recently found a partner in Mourinho who agrees with his judgement. The two stalwarts of football will square up in what can ultimately decide the destination of the league title at the Emirates Stadium on 26 April.

Mourinho has an unbeaten record against Wenger in all competitions and will be looking to keep the feature intact, while the Frenchman will be desperate to mark an end to this anomaly and usher the start of a new dawn.

"But I think Wenger said something that is interesting; he is against the Ballon d'Or, and I think he's right, because in this moment football is losing a little bit the concept of the team to focus more on the individual.

"We are always looking at the individual performance, the individual stat, the player that runs more. Because you run 11km in a game and I run nine you did a better job than I did? Maybe not! Maybe my 9km were more important than your 11," Mourinho said in an exclusive interview with the Telegraph.

"For me, football is collective. The individual is welcome if you want to make our group better. But you have to work for us, not we have to work for you. When the top player arrives, the team is already there. It's not him who comes to discover the team, like Columbus discovering America. No, no, you are coming now to help us be better.

"And as a manager you have to give this message every day – not with lectures or words. It's about what the players observe in relation to the behaviour and to the feedback – the way you react to this player and that player; the empathy with this one and that one," he concluded.