Mourinho plays down Di Matteo’s Champions League success

Chelsea boss Jose Mourinho has played down the Champions League win in 2012, masterminded by Roberto di Matteo.

Di Matteo will face off against his former club on Tuesday as his Schalke side host the Premier League leaders.

The Italian boss guided the Blues to a Champions League win in 2012 over Bayern Munich but was sacked just four months later after failing to qualify for the knockout stages of the competition the following year.

And, Mourinho has played down the significance of that famous night in Munich.

“The Champions League, many, many times I say, is not a consequence of a great work,” the Portuguese told reporters. “Sometimes it is not. You can win the Champions League in the worst season. You can finish fifth and win the Champions League. Right. Liverpool did, and Chelsea, too.

“A knockout competition is something that always has a big percentage of unpredictability.”

The Portuguese coach has won the competition with Porto and Inter Milan in the past and said that their is no secret to success in the competition, before adding that his main goal is to improve the Chelsea squad, rather than imitate the success of Di Matteo.

“I can only work to improve my team all the time, make a very good team like we are doing,” he added. “Me working on the pitch, the club board working at other levels to make a great team like we did in 2004, ’05, ’06 and end with that Champions League.

“But there is nothing we can do [specifically] to win it and you cannot say that is the direction we go in.

“The history is the history that was on the Chelsea bench when Chelsea won the Champions League and Di Matteo is a historic name in this club. And my name is in the history of this club. A club is made of many, many names not one or two names, or one player or one manager.

“I made my history here and now I have the chance to make more history here, and he became Chelsea manager and made his history here.”


Posted

in

, , , ,

by