CHELSEA must fight on four fronts in the next two weeks and José Mourinho is ready for battle, to judge by his pugnacious performance at a press conference yesterday. Nowhere will the challenge be greater than Barcelona, their opponents on Wednesday, but the Portuguese expects to be greeted less as an unwelcome opponent than as the prodigal son.
A relatively unknown assistant to Bobby Robson and Louis van Gaal at Barcelona in his formative years as a coach, Mourinho returns to the Nou Camp as a European champion. He took the opportunity yesterday not only to remind Catalonia of their many shared triumphs during his time there, but also to point out that he, unlike the Spanish giants, had gone on to greater things.
“I don’t have to be jealous about Barcelona because they have 100 years of history and have won the European Cup once,” the Chelsea manager said. “I have been managing for five years and I have the same amount of Champions League trophies to my name.”
It was a statement of the facts, but loaded with provocation. Mourinho’s words carried the same tone when he was informed of unfavourable comparisons with Frank Rijkaard, the former Holland and AC Milan star and now his counterpart at Barcelona. “His history as a player can’t be compared with mine,” Mourinho said. “His is fantastic, my history is zero. My history as a manager can’t be compared either, because he has zero titles and I have a lot of them.”
It was a typically entertaining address from Mourinho, but stressful times could lie ahead. Didier Drogba is almost certainly out of next week’s first leg in Spain and although John Terry should be fine after a small scare in training, Chelsea will field a decidedly weakened team against Newcastle United in the FA Cup on Sunday.
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Mourinho insists that the Barclays Premiership title is his, and his club’s, priority but he could not mask his desire to retain the European Cup that he won with FC Porto last season. “First of all, I have to defend what is mine,” he said. “I will try to defend my cup to the last moment I can. That means a lot to me.
“Because I won the Champions League, I had a big transformation in my life and could come to a big football country like this. I am still very young as a football manager. I think I have 15 more years in front of me in football. I hope to get the same fate one day, but a lot of fantastic managers in the world have not won it a single time.”
Chelsea must overcome the Spanish league leaders to reach the quarter-finals, but Mourinho has been encouraged by the wobble that has allowed Real Madrid to move to within four points of Barcelona. “I wouldn’t say they are playing worse, but they are definitely a bit more under pressure,” he said. “When you are under pressure you lose a bit of calmness, confidence and serenity.
“It’s one thing to be 12 points ahead of the others and another to be only four points ahead and to hear that Real Madrid are not as dead as you thought, but alive and kicking. But we are a different team now from a month ago. We lost two or three very fast forwards and have to think differently. We have no [Arjen] Robben, no Drogba.”
He has no home-grown replacements for that pair but, asked if he could envisage picking a squad without any Englishmen — as Arsenal did against Crystal Palace on Monday — Mourinho replied firmly in the negative.
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Chelsea’s attempt to lure Theo Walcott, Southampton’s teenage prodigy, reflects a policy to buy young. “The club is making investment in youth football,” Mourinho said. “In a couple of years we will be able to answer the demands of Uefa [for a quota of home-grown players]. You can do it with foreign players and the best proof is Arsenal. But especially as a foreign manager, I feel a bit responsible for the national team.
And I would never forget my responsibility to the future of some kids.
“You don’t need to be made at the club to feel the club. I don’t think Chelsea supporters have any doubts that a player like [Claude] Makelele, who came here at 29, wants Chelsea very much to succeed. But when you want to bring the best young players, you must show those kids and their parents that they have a chance to succeed.
“If kids of 10 and 12 see John Terry, Frank Lampard, Joe Cole, they can see it is easy for them to say, ‘Yes, go to Chelsea. Yes, we believe in that philosophy’. I think Peter Kenyon and Roman Abramovich think the same.”