Mourinho has especially missed tough competition.
“I don’t enjoy too much winning 6-0,” he told reporters during the official presentation at Chelsea FC headquarters. “I don’t enjoy a league where you are against one team and it is about 90, 92, 96, 100 points and 100, 110, 120 goals. With the number of points Barcelona got last season, finishing second, they would win any other league. Same with Real Madrid this season.”
To reporters, Mourinho said he missed the mentality of English football. He also said that he became wiser and more “humble” after turning 50 a few months ago. The Portuguese coach seems determined to prove he is still the best and even predicts a title win within two years. But what if this comeback turns into a nightmare?
This return is probably the biggest challenge of his career. Mourinho takes on a team that has been successful, both domestically and internationally, since his departure in 2007. However, many critics and Chelsea fans agree that their playing style is far from attractive. They apparently miss the Special One’s touch.
Chelsea has also had four different managers in four years, making it hard for players to adapt. Hopefully, Mourinho will manage to give some stability to the club, where some players have trouble performing at their best (Fernando Torres, for example).
And we all know Chelsea’s boss, Abramovich, does not like failure and tends to associate it with a sack at the end of the season. Mourinho is well aware of this and seems confident about his future. “I don’t need anybody to push me to have ambition [winning the title],” he said. “I have enough motivation and self-esteem myself, enough desire to do it. But if we don’t do it, yet show we are moving in the right direction, I think we’ll be champions in the second season. I don’t think it’s a drama. I’d expect to be here to win it in that second season.”
Mourinho will have a lot of pressure as the entire football community expects him to be successful—just like he should have been with Madrid. Despite all his trophies and records, Mourinho still has to prove to some skeptics that he is the best because, in the eyes of English football fans, he is far from being the managing master, Sir Alex Ferguson.
The good news is that the master has retired, so now the apprentice can step up and try.
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