Jose Mourinho hopes Chelsea’s progress to the UEFA Champions League round-of-16 will restore his side’s shattered confidence and help save his job.
Mourinho was on the brink of being sacked until Chelsea avoided elimination from Europe’s elite club competition with a 2-0 win over Porto at Stamford Bridge in London on Wednesday.
Needing a draw to ensure they made it to the knockout stages, Chelsea got a timely piece of good fortune through Ivan Marcano’s early own-goal, before Willian’s second-half strike completed a victory that lifted the west Londoners to the top of Group G and eased the pressure on Mourinho.
Photo: Reuters
The sight of Chelsea owner Roman Abramovich grinning and exchanging high-fives with his entourage after Willian’s goal suggested Mourinho has bought himself a little time to get the Premier League champions back on track and the beleaguered Blues boss took heart from the way his players, reportedly mutinous at times during a dismal campaign, responded to the prospect of having to fight to spare him from Abramovich’s axe.
“The thing that I’m more happy with apart from the result is the players accepted the challenge of playing to win, even though we only needed a draw,” Mourinho said. “That is not so easy when the pressure is so high and the results are bad in this difficult period. Being in the Champions League is very important. Being here is the minimum we can give to our supporters. The results are not as good as the way we are working every day, but after our first goal we were more relaxed and confident.”
With Chelsea’s domestic form so poor, Mourinho conceded there is only an outside chance they could qualify for next season’s Champions League via a top-four finish. That makes winning the Champions League the more likely route back into the competition and, in a transparent bid to take the pressure off his team, Mourinho labeled the Blues also-rans, who would be the preferred choice of all their potential opponents in Monday’s draw.
Photo: Reuters
Chelsea will face Paris Saint-Germain, PSV Eindhoven, Juventus, AS Roma, SL Benfica or KAA Gent and Mourinho said: “A team that is struggling like us is obviously not a candidate to win the Champions League.”
“I think everybody wants to play us. Every one team that finished second doesn’t want to play Barcelona, Bayern or Real Madrid. They want to get us because they think we are the weakest,” he said.
With Chelsea languishing just above the Premier League relegation zone and facing a trip to leaders Leicester City on Monday, Mourinho is not out of the woods yet. If Chelsea are to piece together the kind of winning run that would convince Abramovich not to sack him, Mourinho must get more from Diego Costa, the misfiring Spain international who played a key role in the opening goal against Porto, but generally looked desperately short of confidence.
Photo: EPA
“It is clear [Costa is struggling for confidence], but it is also clear to see his effort, commitment and great movement, which he didn’t have in the last couple of months,” Mourinho said. “Yes, there is a lack of confidence clearly, but not a lack of effort.”
Despite having condemned his former club to the UEFA Europa League, Mourinho still earned a vote of confidence from Porto manager Julen Lopetegui.
“Mourinho is one of the best coaches in history. I’m sure he’s the right man to continue here at Chelsea,” Lopetegui said. “I’m sad about the result, but we were against a strong team. We had three or four good chances, but there were some unlucky situations that changed the result completely.”
In the other match in Group G, Denys Garmash scored a fortuitous goal to earn Dynamo Kiev a 1-0 win over Maccabi Tel Aviv which enabled the Ukrainian champions to grab a place in the round-of-16.
Playing in an empty stadium because of a UEFA ban, Dynamo’s winner came courtesy of a good deal of fortune when Maccabi’s Tal Ben Chaim deflected a free-kick toward his own goal.
Goalkeeper Predrag Rajkovic could only push the ball into the path of Garmash, who accepted the 16th-minute gift gratefully.
The goal was enough for Dynamo to leapfrog Porto and snatch second place in the group.
It was a night of celebration for Kiev coach Serhiy Rebrov, who led the club to the round-of-16 for the first time in 16 years.
The 41-year-old former Kiev striker was part of the team that reached the second group stage in 1999-2000, a year after they made the semi-finals.
“It was a very tough game from the point of view of psychology, as it is always hard to play without fans,” Rebrov told reporters. “It is a completely different story when you see the empty stands. We tried to hide our anxiety, but the stakes of the game were high and the lads were constrained in their actions. We should take our time to enjoy the moment as we have not been in the knockout stage for 16 years. Half of our team had no Champions League experience and I think it is a great success.”
UEFA had ordered Kiev to play two home games in an empty stadium after racist attacks on Chelsea fans at an earlier Champions League group match. They will also have to hold the home leg of their round-of-16 tie behind closed doors.
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