Jose Mourinho keeping his opinions to himself? Sounds improbable, but that's just what the outspoken Chelsea manager claims he'll do this season.
Mourinho's first season in English soccer was punctuated by his brash thoughts on referees, the Football Association and rival managers and players. Now that Chelsea is about to begin the defense of its Premier League title, Mourinho is taking a different approach.
"My philosophy, especially for this season is to think about us, to forget the others, to go our way," Mourinho said Friday. "Don't be too much worried about what they say and try to live independently of that.
"If one day I feel I need to do something in relation to that, I will change that but at the starting point of the season, I will just be in my corner, concentrating on my job and nothing else."
When asked if he would rather retain the Premier League title -- and become the first club since Manchester United to win back-to-back English championships since Liverpool in 1984 -- or win Chelsea's first Champions League trophy, Mourinho didn't hesitate: "Premiership," he said.
Chelsea chief executive Peter Kenyon has said the Premier League champion will come from a ``small bunch of one.'' Mourinho laughed that off.
"He's trying to motivate his people," Mourinho said.
"It's good for us to listen to our chief executive because he trusts us so much, it's positive for us.
"As for the others, they should do what we do, just ignore. If we all do the same and we all concentrate on our job, maybe it is not good for you [the media] because you don't have great things to write about, but I think it is good for football."
Mourinho refused to be drawn on claims by Arsenal manager Arsene Wenger that transfer prices doubled any time Chelsea expressed interest in a player.
"No reaction. It's his opinion," Mourinho said.
But he did acknowledge that the ?21 million (30.2 million euros) Chelsea paid Manchester City for striker Shaun Wright-Phillips was inflated.
"In between English clubs, the transfer fee is very, very high and not because of Chelsea because of English football and English market," Mourinho said. "It's not Shaun, it's every player who moves from an English club to another English club. For me, it's too expensive, but that's the English market."
Bayer 04 Leverkusen go into today’s match at TSG 1899 Hoffenheim stung from their first league defeat in 16 months. Leverkusen were beaten 3-2 at home by RB Leipzig before the international break, the first loss since May last year for the reigning league and cup champions. While any defeat, particularly against a likely title rival, would have disappointed coach Xabi Alonso, the way in which it happened would be most concerning. Just as they did in the Supercup against VfB Stuttgart and in the league opener to Borussia Moenchengladbach, Leverkusen scored first, but were pegged back. However, while Leverkusen rallied late to
If all goes well when the biggest marathon field ever gathered in Australia races 42km through the streets of Sydney on Sunday, World Marathon Majors (WMM) will soon add a seventh race to the elite series. The Sydney Marathon is to become the first race since Tokyo in 2013 to join long-established majors in New York, London, Boston, Berlin and Chicago if it passes the WMM assessment criteria for the second straight year. “We’re really excited for Sunday to arrive,” race director Wayne Larden told a news conference in Sydney yesterday. “We’re prepared, we’re ready. All of our plans look good on
The lights dimmed and the crowd hushed as Karoline Kristensen entered for her performance. However, this was no ordinary Dutch theater: The temperature was 80°C and the audience naked apart from a towel. Dressed in a swimsuit and to the tune of emotional music, the 21-year-old Kristensen started her routine, performed inside a large sauna, with a bed of hot rocks in the middle. For a week this month, a group of wellness practitioners, called “sauna masters,” are gathering at a picturesque health resort in the Netherlands to compete in this year’s Aufguss world sauna championships. The practice takes its name from a
When details from a scientific experiment that could have helped clear Russian figure skater Kamila Valieva landed at the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA), the leader of the organization’s reaction was unequivocal: “We have to stop that urgently,” he wrote. No mention of the test ever became public and Valieva’s defense at the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) went on without it. What effect the information could have had on Valieva’s case is unclear, but without it, the skater, then 15 years old, was eventually disqualified from the 2022 Winter Olympics after testing positive for a banned heart medication that would later
RSS