Milan: Inter will take a slight advantage into their second leg tie with Chelsea, having defeated the Blues 2-1 at the Stadio Giuseppe Meazza on Wednesday evening - and manager Jose Mourinho made a bold prediction about the second leg.
"Mourinho does not lose at Stamford Bridge," the Inter boss told Al Jazeera. In his time as Chelsea manager, Mourinho never lost a home league game.
“Of course I'm happy inside, I was saying a few months ago when we got the draw that of course as a professional I want to win,” he added on ITV. “I want to win more than anybody else.”
The former Chelsea manager rejected the notion that the game was a tactical battle.
“I don't think the game was a question of tactics, I think the game was a real Champions League game. High level game, no surprises from me, no surprises from Chelsea, just two teams playing with the qualities they have,” he explained.
Mourinho revealed he had told his players not to fear Chelsea's qualities and said he had expected a close game.
“I told my players, 'they are not better than us, they are different from us. They have some qualities we don't have and we have some qualities they don't have',” said the Inter manager. “So I think this kind of result, 1-1, 2-1, 1-0, 0-1 is the kind of result you see every game of Champions League, the eight games of this round and nobody won by two goals difference.”
Chelsea could have had a penalty at the end of the first half as Salomon Kalou was fouled by Walter Samuel, but Mourinho said he didn't see the incident.
“I didn't watch on TV, [the incident occurred] too far from me and on TV I didn't watch it,” he said.
The Inter boss explained that although both teams could have performed to a higher standard this is to be expected in a knockout scenario.
“Chelsea can play better, Inter can play better, but this is reality of the Champions League – it's sometimes difficult to express the qualities of the team because this is knockout,” Mourinho said.
“The players are on the pitch and they know any mistake can cost qualification, they are a bit under pressure. As I was saying Inter was unlucky with the draw, Chelsea was unlucky with the draw.
“If you see every match in Champions League I think this one was the one with two teams with great ambitions and one has to go home.”
Comments
0 comment