Chelsea manager Jose Mourinho has hit out at FC Schalke 04 boss Roberto di Matteo ahead of their Champions League encounter on Tuesday, Express reports.
The Portuguese manager has played down Di Matteo’s Champions League win for the Blues back in 2012 as lucky, expressing that making a team capable of long-term success is the true definition of a great manager.
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Di Matteo was sacked just six months after winning the European cup due to the club’s poor form the following season, only to be replaced by former Liverpool gaffer Rafael Benitez.
Chelsea are now however in impressive form, seven points clear at the summit of the Premier League and still unbeaten in all competitions this season.
A win tonight against the Bundesliga outfit will guarantee the Blues a spot in the knock-out stages, and the ‘Special One’ points out that it was his long-term planning that got the team where they are.
The Champions League many, many times has not been a consequence of great work,” he said.
“Sometimes you can win the Champions League in your worst season. You can finish fifth in the league and still win it. Liverpool did – and Chelsea finished sixth the year they won it.
“A knockout competition always has a big percentage of unpredictability. I work to improve my team all the time, to make a very good team, like we are doing.
“I want to win the next match, I want to make the team get better. That happens with me working on the pitch, and the board working at other levels to make a great side like we did in 2004, 2005, and 2006. Maybe that ends with that Champions League.
“Roberto is a historic name in this club. My name is also in the history of this club. But a football club is made of many, many names, not one or two, one player or one manager.
“I had my history here and now I have the chance to make more history here, and he was Chelsea manager and he had his history here.”
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