Mourinho Criticizes His Own Style!

Chelsea manager Jose Mourinho seems to have a--really--short memory. The technician complained about West Ham United's defending approach after his team failed to score a goal in the 0-0 draw at Stamford Bridge on Wednesday, Jan. 29. 

Mourinho even said that West ham played 19th century football. 

"This is not the best league in the world, this football from the 19th century. The only other thing I could bring was a Black and Decker hammer to destroy the wall," said Mourinho in press conference after the game.

Poor Jose! His team had to play against 11 defenders, 11 players in the last 20 meters of the field. A real wall dressed in front of West Ham's goalkeeper. It is surely unfair...Hold on a minute! Isn't that how Mourinho's Inter Milan played against Barcelona when they won the Champions League in 2010?

Against the best team in the world, against a team far better than his, Mourinho did the exact same thing. He asked all his players to stay in font of their goal and to only played in counter attacks. He even forced Samuel Eto'o to play second right-back to help out! In other words, only Barcelona was playing and Inter was waiting. That wasn't a problem at the time for Jose Mourinho, but it seems to have become one after this game.

"It's very difficult to play a football match when only one team wants to play," he said. "A football match is about two teams playing and another team not playing." 

Really? In both games against Barcelona, Inter only had 30 percent of possession. Is that "playing" the game? They did not even try in the second leg. They just kept kicking the ball away and let Barcelona come back in front of their box.

But Mourinho is a genius. He said that a game starts at the press conference before the match and finishes at the press conference after the match. Except this time he did not win. West ham United manager Sam Allardyce did.

"He can't take it, can He?" Allardyce said. "He can't take it because we've outwitted him. He just can't cope." 

Allardyce added that he loved "to see Chelsea players moaning at the referee, trying to intimidate him, Jose jumping up and down saying we play rubbish football. It's brilliant when you get a result against him. Hard luck, Jose!"

Finally, Mourinho admitted that if he had been in West Ham's position, he might have done the same thing. We are proud of you, Jose!

 

 

Mourinho's Challenge

After three unsuccessful years at Real Madrid, the Special One is back in the English Premier League. Jose Mourinho returns to Chelsea FC and a championship that he loves.

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.  

Are you ready for the Spanish Cup final?

Tomorrow, Friday, May 17. Real Madrid plays Athletico Madrid in the Spanish Cup final.
What seems to be a classic derby between the two Spain capital clubs still has a particular savor for a few reasons.

First of all, it's a final and as many coaches would say, you don't play a final, you win it! And Real Madrid needs a win, in order to cover a far-from-being-extraordinary season. Second in La Liga, far behind Barcelona, eliminated in the semifinals of the Champions League after a terrible 4-1 loss to Dortmund in the first leg, Madrid must finish the season with a title.

Second, the Athletico has failed to defeat Real Madrid in their last 25 confrontations. They surely don't want to leave the stadium with another defeat! And, to avoid that, Athletico can count on Radamel Falcao. The Colombian striker, who might leave the club for a move to AS Monaco this summer, has scored 32 goals this season and probably wants to leave the club with a trophy.

Finally, this game might be the last chance for two Madridistas to win a trophy before leaving. We are obviously talking about Jose Mourinho, who is most likely to leave for Chelsea after this season and Cristiano Ronaldo, whose last contract request has been denied by Madrid.

In Mourinho's case, it would be a way to shut the critics a little bit and leave Madrid with four trophies in three seasons. Not bad at all, even though the Champions League title is still missing!

For Ronaldo, we can say that his time at MAdrid (if he leaves at the end of the season) has not been so great. Alright, he won one championship and two cups (maybe a third one if Madrid wins tomorrow), but still, he came to Real Madrid to win the Champions League and get another Golden Ball. Unlucky for him, he had to play against a guy named Messi and lost in the semifinals of the cup three years in a row...