'I'm proud to be part of history. But I want more - for me and Chelsea'
In an exclusive extract from the new edition of Chelsea FC: The Official Biography 'The Special One' reflects on the triumphs of last season
Thursday July 27, 2006
The Guardian
"The game against West Ham [in April] at home was the one that makes me say, 'It's over, no chance'. Losing 1-0, playing with 10 men, change the result, win 4-1, play fantastic, and after that go to Bolton, very difficult place to win, win 2-0. So you need a draw to be champions, you beat Man United 3-0: you are champions at home. This last period was brilliant."
At the start of the campaign, mindful of the potential for distraction of Germany 2006, Mourinho had privately warned his players they risked being dropped if they talked about the World Cup. He knew the demands sponsors, managers and the media might make on his squad of internationals.
"It's very difficult," he admitted. "It mainly depends on national coaches and depends on players as individuals. National coaches act differently. One, he say to the players, 'It doesn't matter what you do in your club, you are my choice, you will be in the World Cup,' and it leaves the player with a lot of freedom. Another one can say exactly the opposite, 'If you don't play, I don't select you. You have to think about the move. In December if you are not playing, you have to move, you have to go on loan, you have to change your club; if not, you are not coming.'
Mourinho had feared complacency all season. "That, I think, was not just about the World Cup. I think it was also about, for example, because we didn't progress in Champions League. You can be comfortable and have no motivation in the Premiership - because you won it already - but if you are involved in Champions League, you keep the standard high, you keep training at the high level, high intensity."
In the second half of the season, along with the traumatic defeat to Barcelona in March, Chelsea surprisingly dropped points to Charlton, Aston Villa, Middlesbrough and Fulham. On the day of the Charlton match at home - the only points dropped at Stamford Bridge all season - on January 22, Chelsea had been 16 points ahead of United. As usual, though, it was the reaction, not the event itself that the manager was examining.
"My players are the players of the first period and the players of the last period," he said. "That's what I want to believe. And that's what I do believe, because if they are not that kind of player and not that kind of man they cannot react the way they did. So for me that was not a surprise. For me the surprise was during the season, during that couple of months, February, March, up and down, not so committed, not the same level of motivation and I'm in that group. I'm not saying I was the perfect professional and they were not good. I'm in the same group. We all felt it's over, but it was not over.
"When you are out of the Champions League and at the same time you feel like champions of England you have nothing else behind your brain to push you for high standards, so you let the season fly, you let the season go, because you know in one more week, two more weeks, three more weeks, you are champions. And you know it's incorrect but it's very difficult to fight the situation, so only when we felt they are seven - not 20 any more - they are only seven points behind you, it's then that you feel you wake up to the reality. And if you are good you react the way the team did and you win it. If you are not good, you can collapse. You can collapse under that pressure, but the answer was magnificent."
As Chelsea's sureness lessened, the media resurrected the image of the United thoroughbred, whipped along by Ferguson - the same wily old jockey who had chased and overtaken Kevin Keegan's runaway Newcastle a decade earlier - catching the Blues. It was instructive to the Portuguese about the psyche of his host country. He produced a story from his homeland in response, in which two men are in a boat a mile out to sea. They jump into the water and race to the beach, but one is a better swimmer and gets ahead.
The one chasing struggles with all his might to catch up, and while the first one arrives on the beach in comfort, the second collapses from a heart attack. "We call it 'Dying on the Beach'," Mourinho told reporters, smiling. "He shouldn't chase me! He should say, 'Please take my boat a bit closer first!' He's so enthusiastic chasing me, but he has a heart attack."
"The English have Devon Loch," mused Mourinho months later. "And we have Dying on the Beach. It is the exact opposite. It is better being in the Devon Loch position. How many times does Devon Loch collapse? Once. Normally the guy in front has more chances to win and that's what the Portuguese metaphor I try to bring to football is about. If you are in front, people used to say, 'Ah! You are under pressure, under pressure'. Under pressure is the one in second position, because the second one is behind me - even if he's one point behind.
"In England, people go a lot for the history and they remember Newcastle when Man United did it, and they remember Man United when they are second in December, they finish first. But history is to be changed. Because of the second title, we are not a Blackburn that was champion once, isolated, and after that is miles and miles away from it. Chelsea is not any more an isolated situation. It's back-to-back. And if, in the next five years, we can be three or four times champion, definitely that's an era where Chelsea has become very powerful."
And yet the Champions League, the tournament that inspired Roman Abramovich to enter the football world, eluded Chelsea again. After the controversy of the previous season's win over Barcelona, it was inevitable that they would be paired again. The prospect of these matches cast a shadow over the season until they were over, but Mourinho was sanguine about the outcome - even the disputed sending-off of Asier Del Horno for a lunge on Leo Messi.
"You know," he said, "I think, if you can say it not in a negative way, Barcelona was 'the chosen one'. I think they are a great team. They have great players. They play very attractive football and they are an amazing club and they have, in their history, only one Champions League and they couldn't do it for decades. And, in the last two years, everybody was feeling they were the chosen one."
One aspect of the matches with Barcelona and the other dramatic defeat - the disappointing FA Cup semi-final against Liverpool at Old Trafford - was that for once Mourinho's strategy and tactics were criticised. For a manager who has frequently gambled shrewdly and won, and who successfully introduced a diamond midfield at the end of the season to win games, this was a novelty. "Well, first of all, I'm happy with the critics," Mourinho said. "I won so many times and people routinely see my team win and win, and when we lose they have to go for something and I'm happy they go for my strategy.
"On the day of our champions parade, it was all Liverpool and Liverpool parade, and a Chelsea photo in the corner of page 34 or 28. It's absolutely amazing. It's absolutely amazing. So I think we are fighting the establishment and I am quite happy with it. I always used to say that the media can manipulate the people ... That's obvious. Media goes to your house every day through television, through newspapers, through the Internet, through public opinion.
"I think Chelsea, with the effort of the last years ... Roman bought the club, changed the club, brought Peter Kenyon, changed the manager, changed players, does a lot for English football, does a lot for kids, does a lot for society, does a lot for charity, does a lot in many, many different areas, I think Chelsea deserves much more than it gets. Another club would be already on the moon, and Chelsea is still far from being on the moon."
"I think I saw it in the champions parade," he said. "I think it was a parade without the real emotion, because parades, all over the world, are usually on the same day or the day after you win the title. So when you have to do a parade nearly one month later it means 10% of the reality. You can imagine: Chelsea beat Man United 3-0 and after the game - parade! There would have been maybe 500,000 people there.
"That's what happened to me in Porto or in any place. But even in that parade that lost a lot, I saw a lot of kids. I think that the kids will be the ones for the next step because the reality is like that. The people of my generation in Portugal, everyone supported Benfica. Everybody Benfica. And the people of this generation, everybody's Porto, because Porto won Champions League, won Uefa Cup, won titles and titles and titles. Everybody supports them ...
"And in England, if Chelsea keep winning, even in the north, or even kids with parents supporting Arsenal or Man United or this or that, if you are a kid and I am a kid, I go to the school with a Chelsea shirt because Chelsea is winning and winning. 'You are from Arsenal? Ah, you want a blue shirt! You want a blue shirt; you hide your Arsenal shirt.' It's true. So I think if we keep winning that is what can make the Chelsea family bigger and bigger and bigger and be stronger.
"In our side of the world, in my Latin side, we used to say, 'In football, the memory is very short'. But I also say that when you do very important things, that short memory cannot fight against that. You know, it's history forever. You can destroy every record, papers, photos, everything, my grandson will know his grandfather won the Champions League with Porto. Some things you cannot erase.
"So we go for the worst picture: next season, relegated; John Terry, the worst player in the Premiership; Frank Lampard, killed 20 people behind the goal, never hits the net; Mourinho, only bad decisions. You know, you can imagine the worst picture possible, you cannot erase the history. Fifty years later, Chelsea was champion, the champions were him and him and him. I always think about the future, you know. I mean I'm in the history. I'm very proud to be in that history, but I want more things: more things for me, more things for Chelsea and one day more things for me not in Chelsea.
"Because one day you have to stop because I want or because Chelsea wants, but I am happy, I'm looking forward to the challenges. I want to repeat what we have won. I want to win what we didn't.
"I can imagine, I hope it happens in 20 years' time, I come back to London and to Stamford Bridge to see a game and I have to believe, with what I see, that people will respect me and will cheer me in this kind of situation. Or one day I hope in 60 years' time - so I hope I go to 100 - when I'm dead, Chelsea supporters will remember this guy was the coach. So I understand that."
What will the legacy of Chelsea's finest manager be? Should a statue be erected to his memory? "No, no, no," he laughed. "I don't think so, and especially because I believe in 60 years' time being champions at Chelsea cannot be an extraordinary thing. It can be something just natural. Just natural. So the objective is exactly that. It's to make victories in this club something normal, something that you are waiting for, and nothing extraordinary. It's the routine.
"I think what Chelsea has to find now is the culture of victory. Chelsea won the title twice consecutively. Victory is normal. When you don't win, it's not normal. You know, so the statue must be for the guys that lose the championship!"
Chelsea FC: The Official Biography by Rick Glanvill is published by Headline on July 31. To order a copy for £6.99 with free UK p&p go to guardian.co.uk/bookshop or call 0870 836 0875
http://football.guardian.co.uk/News_Story/0,,1831015,00.html
===
Gotta love this guy
In an exclusive extract from the new edition of Chelsea FC: The Official Biography 'The Special One' reflects on the triumphs of last season
Thursday July 27, 2006
The Guardian
"The game against West Ham [in April] at home was the one that makes me say, 'It's over, no chance'. Losing 1-0, playing with 10 men, change the result, win 4-1, play fantastic, and after that go to Bolton, very difficult place to win, win 2-0. So you need a draw to be champions, you beat Man United 3-0: you are champions at home. This last period was brilliant."
At the start of the campaign, mindful of the potential for distraction of Germany 2006, Mourinho had privately warned his players they risked being dropped if they talked about the World Cup. He knew the demands sponsors, managers and the media might make on his squad of internationals.
"It's very difficult," he admitted. "It mainly depends on national coaches and depends on players as individuals. National coaches act differently. One, he say to the players, 'It doesn't matter what you do in your club, you are my choice, you will be in the World Cup,' and it leaves the player with a lot of freedom. Another one can say exactly the opposite, 'If you don't play, I don't select you. You have to think about the move. In December if you are not playing, you have to move, you have to go on loan, you have to change your club; if not, you are not coming.'
Mourinho had feared complacency all season. "That, I think, was not just about the World Cup. I think it was also about, for example, because we didn't progress in Champions League. You can be comfortable and have no motivation in the Premiership - because you won it already - but if you are involved in Champions League, you keep the standard high, you keep training at the high level, high intensity."
In the second half of the season, along with the traumatic defeat to Barcelona in March, Chelsea surprisingly dropped points to Charlton, Aston Villa, Middlesbrough and Fulham. On the day of the Charlton match at home - the only points dropped at Stamford Bridge all season - on January 22, Chelsea had been 16 points ahead of United. As usual, though, it was the reaction, not the event itself that the manager was examining.
"My players are the players of the first period and the players of the last period," he said. "That's what I want to believe. And that's what I do believe, because if they are not that kind of player and not that kind of man they cannot react the way they did. So for me that was not a surprise. For me the surprise was during the season, during that couple of months, February, March, up and down, not so committed, not the same level of motivation and I'm in that group. I'm not saying I was the perfect professional and they were not good. I'm in the same group. We all felt it's over, but it was not over.
"When you are out of the Champions League and at the same time you feel like champions of England you have nothing else behind your brain to push you for high standards, so you let the season fly, you let the season go, because you know in one more week, two more weeks, three more weeks, you are champions. And you know it's incorrect but it's very difficult to fight the situation, so only when we felt they are seven - not 20 any more - they are only seven points behind you, it's then that you feel you wake up to the reality. And if you are good you react the way the team did and you win it. If you are not good, you can collapse. You can collapse under that pressure, but the answer was magnificent."
As Chelsea's sureness lessened, the media resurrected the image of the United thoroughbred, whipped along by Ferguson - the same wily old jockey who had chased and overtaken Kevin Keegan's runaway Newcastle a decade earlier - catching the Blues. It was instructive to the Portuguese about the psyche of his host country. He produced a story from his homeland in response, in which two men are in a boat a mile out to sea. They jump into the water and race to the beach, but one is a better swimmer and gets ahead.
The one chasing struggles with all his might to catch up, and while the first one arrives on the beach in comfort, the second collapses from a heart attack. "We call it 'Dying on the Beach'," Mourinho told reporters, smiling. "He shouldn't chase me! He should say, 'Please take my boat a bit closer first!' He's so enthusiastic chasing me, but he has a heart attack."
"The English have Devon Loch," mused Mourinho months later. "And we have Dying on the Beach. It is the exact opposite. It is better being in the Devon Loch position. How many times does Devon Loch collapse? Once. Normally the guy in front has more chances to win and that's what the Portuguese metaphor I try to bring to football is about. If you are in front, people used to say, 'Ah! You are under pressure, under pressure'. Under pressure is the one in second position, because the second one is behind me - even if he's one point behind.
"In England, people go a lot for the history and they remember Newcastle when Man United did it, and they remember Man United when they are second in December, they finish first. But history is to be changed. Because of the second title, we are not a Blackburn that was champion once, isolated, and after that is miles and miles away from it. Chelsea is not any more an isolated situation. It's back-to-back. And if, in the next five years, we can be three or four times champion, definitely that's an era where Chelsea has become very powerful."
And yet the Champions League, the tournament that inspired Roman Abramovich to enter the football world, eluded Chelsea again. After the controversy of the previous season's win over Barcelona, it was inevitable that they would be paired again. The prospect of these matches cast a shadow over the season until they were over, but Mourinho was sanguine about the outcome - even the disputed sending-off of Asier Del Horno for a lunge on Leo Messi.
"You know," he said, "I think, if you can say it not in a negative way, Barcelona was 'the chosen one'. I think they are a great team. They have great players. They play very attractive football and they are an amazing club and they have, in their history, only one Champions League and they couldn't do it for decades. And, in the last two years, everybody was feeling they were the chosen one."
One aspect of the matches with Barcelona and the other dramatic defeat - the disappointing FA Cup semi-final against Liverpool at Old Trafford - was that for once Mourinho's strategy and tactics were criticised. For a manager who has frequently gambled shrewdly and won, and who successfully introduced a diamond midfield at the end of the season to win games, this was a novelty. "Well, first of all, I'm happy with the critics," Mourinho said. "I won so many times and people routinely see my team win and win, and when we lose they have to go for something and I'm happy they go for my strategy.
"On the day of our champions parade, it was all Liverpool and Liverpool parade, and a Chelsea photo in the corner of page 34 or 28. It's absolutely amazing. It's absolutely amazing. So I think we are fighting the establishment and I am quite happy with it. I always used to say that the media can manipulate the people ... That's obvious. Media goes to your house every day through television, through newspapers, through the Internet, through public opinion.
"I think Chelsea, with the effort of the last years ... Roman bought the club, changed the club, brought Peter Kenyon, changed the manager, changed players, does a lot for English football, does a lot for kids, does a lot for society, does a lot for charity, does a lot in many, many different areas, I think Chelsea deserves much more than it gets. Another club would be already on the moon, and Chelsea is still far from being on the moon."
"I think I saw it in the champions parade," he said. "I think it was a parade without the real emotion, because parades, all over the world, are usually on the same day or the day after you win the title. So when you have to do a parade nearly one month later it means 10% of the reality. You can imagine: Chelsea beat Man United 3-0 and after the game - parade! There would have been maybe 500,000 people there.
"That's what happened to me in Porto or in any place. But even in that parade that lost a lot, I saw a lot of kids. I think that the kids will be the ones for the next step because the reality is like that. The people of my generation in Portugal, everyone supported Benfica. Everybody Benfica. And the people of this generation, everybody's Porto, because Porto won Champions League, won Uefa Cup, won titles and titles and titles. Everybody supports them ...
"And in England, if Chelsea keep winning, even in the north, or even kids with parents supporting Arsenal or Man United or this or that, if you are a kid and I am a kid, I go to the school with a Chelsea shirt because Chelsea is winning and winning. 'You are from Arsenal? Ah, you want a blue shirt! You want a blue shirt; you hide your Arsenal shirt.' It's true. So I think if we keep winning that is what can make the Chelsea family bigger and bigger and bigger and be stronger.
"In our side of the world, in my Latin side, we used to say, 'In football, the memory is very short'. But I also say that when you do very important things, that short memory cannot fight against that. You know, it's history forever. You can destroy every record, papers, photos, everything, my grandson will know his grandfather won the Champions League with Porto. Some things you cannot erase.
"So we go for the worst picture: next season, relegated; John Terry, the worst player in the Premiership; Frank Lampard, killed 20 people behind the goal, never hits the net; Mourinho, only bad decisions. You know, you can imagine the worst picture possible, you cannot erase the history. Fifty years later, Chelsea was champion, the champions were him and him and him. I always think about the future, you know. I mean I'm in the history. I'm very proud to be in that history, but I want more things: more things for me, more things for Chelsea and one day more things for me not in Chelsea.
"Because one day you have to stop because I want or because Chelsea wants, but I am happy, I'm looking forward to the challenges. I want to repeat what we have won. I want to win what we didn't.
"I can imagine, I hope it happens in 20 years' time, I come back to London and to Stamford Bridge to see a game and I have to believe, with what I see, that people will respect me and will cheer me in this kind of situation. Or one day I hope in 60 years' time - so I hope I go to 100 - when I'm dead, Chelsea supporters will remember this guy was the coach. So I understand that."
What will the legacy of Chelsea's finest manager be? Should a statue be erected to his memory? "No, no, no," he laughed. "I don't think so, and especially because I believe in 60 years' time being champions at Chelsea cannot be an extraordinary thing. It can be something just natural. Just natural. So the objective is exactly that. It's to make victories in this club something normal, something that you are waiting for, and nothing extraordinary. It's the routine.
"I think what Chelsea has to find now is the culture of victory. Chelsea won the title twice consecutively. Victory is normal. When you don't win, it's not normal. You know, so the statue must be for the guys that lose the championship!"
Chelsea FC: The Official Biography by Rick Glanvill is published by Headline on July 31. To order a copy for £6.99 with free UK p&p go to guardian.co.uk/bookshop or call 0870 836 0875
http://football.guardian.co.uk/News_Story/0,,1831015,00.html
===
Gotta love this guy
Buy on AliExpress.com
