Jose Mourinho sees how special the Jaguar F-Pace is

Jose Mourinho rubs his hands together furiously. No stranger to icy stares or slippery conditions, right now he’s delivering one while surveying the other. He has no option: he’s standing on a frozen lake, whose expanse is solid underfoot to the depth of 50cm. Ten minutes down the road is another that’s apparently the size of Greater London. "I remember playing a match in Russia,’ he says. ‘It must have been -10˚C, so cold that some of the players were crying. We thought that one of the linesmen had died…"

This is Arjeplog, an outpost of Swedish Lapland 40 miles from the Arctic Circle, and a place whose hardy citizenship is swollen in number every winter by car industry engineers and test drivers pushing prototypes to the brink of mechanical oblivion. Top Gear was here a few weeks ago to help Jaguar sign off the F-Pace, and now Jose is here to try it.

But as speculation about his next move reaches fever pitch – Manchester United is front runner, setting up a renewed rivalry with Pep Guardiola, newly announced as Man City’s new coach – the symbolism of the ‘special one’ communing with nature at its most stark is self-evident. Last week he made a flying visit to Shanghai, and berserk fans besieged his hotel. Just how far does he have to go to find some solitude? Here, it seems.

"Look at the nature," he says. "My football world involves thousands of people, and we travel to the biggest cities. So to come here, it's an empty place, but it’s so full of so many things. I just love it. I know it’s very cold, I know that I would not survive outside for many hours here, but the experience is magnificent, the beauty is fantastic. For people in my world, a few days in a place like this is amazing."

It’s over six weeks since Chelsea abruptly sacked Mourinho, and this is the first time he has broken his silence. Quite apart from the vast fees he can command as a manager, Mourinho is commercial gold; his array of lucrative brand relationships puts him in a ballpark not unadjacent to David Beckham or Ronaldo. Discussion of where he’s been and where’s he headed next, his agent warns me, will bring the shutters slamming down, so the conversation will necessarily have to tip-toe around the Manchester United-shaped elephant in the room.

He paces the ice, smartphone rarely far from reach. Elk may outnumber humans up here, but the 3G signal on the phone network is uninterrupted. Bang goes the solitude.

We watch as he drives the F-Pace. As you’ll have read elsewhere on Top Gear, the F-Pace has been carefully engineered to behave as much like a sports car as possible, despite its height and weight. So while its chassis electronics give it unbelievable poise in these icy conditions, a competent driver can still drift this thing like Ken Block, should they choose to.

It’s Mourinho’s turn to be coached, and the job has fallen to a Finnish former rally driver called Tommi Karrinaho. I get the lowdown on his famous pupil, during a short break. "Well, he’s a very sensible fellow," Tommi says carefully. "He starts slowly, which is entirely right, and he is listening carefully to everything I tell him. I’m always very mindful of whether my message is getting through, and with him it definitely is. Getting him to go over the limit and let go a little bit is the next step."

Mourinho’s body language in the car betrays a man unprepared to relinquish control, but he’s also someone more willing to learn than you might think. "The car responds very well to every situation. Great responses, very stable, great fun," Jose says succinctly. As well as a Jaguar F-type and Range Rover, he owns a Ferrari 612 Scaglietti and Aston Martin Rapide, but concedes he is no Stig-in-waiting.

He is, however, a fully paid-up Anglophile, and dreamt of owning a Jaguar while driving the Mini given to him by his father, himself a coach. He also admits he once bought a Volvo because it was the only car on sale at the time that had lateral airbags, and the safety of his family was his main priority.

Yes, family. Mourinho talks a lot about his wife and children. His daughter is studying in London; his son, Jose Mario, is playing for Fulham. "At this moment I don’t have a job, and I don’t know where football will take me, because in football you never know. But for sure, for sure, for sure, as a family, our home will still be England, our home will be in London. But obviously I am ready to move. As a professional, I am ready to move, especially because football in London for me, in terms of clubs… I think it is clear that I have to move."

The shutters stay up, for now. I ask him if he is enjoying the – enforced – down time. "No, I am not enjoying it. I can have everything I love at the same time. I can have my family, I can have my friends, I can have my quiet life, which I also like, and I can have my football… I can have everything together and I don’t need to give up on one of them. To be fully happy I need everything, so I go back to football. I think it’s my natural habitat."

Ever the master of his own brand – even the way he moves has a studied, low energy feel to it – he also seems genuinely impervious to the vast pressure engendered by Premier League football. It’s impressive to witness in close quarters.

"Privacy is difficult to have, unless I come here for a holiday," he smiles. "But really, football is not pressure for me – it is a privilege. I cope because it’s easy to cope with something you like very, very much. That is why sometimes I don’t understand when players don't enjoy their professional life. This is the kind of job were you are very well-paid, but at the same time you live the dreams you had as a kid. I think a 90-minute match is more pressure for the people that love us, the people outside."

For a man who has elevated his job to new levels of intensity and focus, one wonders what there is left to find out. Or even achieve. Doesn’t he feel that there is nothing left that anyone could possibly tell him? The shutters rattle a little.

"Nooooo! I have always to learn. Even in football, which is an area in which I feel I am an expert, I am never perfect and I will always learn," he says firmly. "Sometimes in my work, and also in private life, maybe people think I am not humble. But I am so humble, and I am always ready to learn from people who know more than me."

Maybe, despite himself, he has enjoyed this period of introspection. He has certainly done more in the Jaguar F-Pace than most of us ever will, even if the usual Jose rigour takes precedence over simple fun. He once hit some ice in central Milan, he tells me, and now feels better equipped to deal with it. We sign off with a warm handshake, and the hope of some resolution in the next few months. He smiles again. "I wait," he says simply.

Not for long.