Roberto Mancini and Mourinho Continue Fued
Ahead of tonight’s Champions League match between Galatasaray and Chelsea FC, managers Roberto Mancini and Jose Mourinho continued their feud with some shots at each other. As is the usual this season, opposition managers feel the need to comment on Mourinho’s attitude or past achievements and place themselves firmly in the Portuguese’s cross hairs. In the most recent episode, Mancini downplayed Mourinho’s Champions League win with Inter Milan because he believes he built the team before he was sacked.
Mancini said in a press conference:
"“Mourinho won the Champions League because he took a good team. He took a team that, like Manchester City, I had built; a team with a very strong mentality. When I went to Inter, they played very bad football and we changed this.”"
Mancini was no slouch at Inter as he won three back to back Serie A titles and two Copa Italia titles but to insist that Mourinho only won because he used a team that Mancini built is just silly. Mourinho has a track record of winning the Champions League and has done it with both Porto and Inter. Naturally Mourinho responded to Mancini:
"“It’s funny, it’s funny. It’s funny because my team in the final had Lucio, Thiago Motta, Diego Milito, Samuel Eto’o, Goran Pandev and Wesley Sneijder. From 11 players, he didn’t work with six of them. So he made a five-a-side team because I played with only five players from his team.”"
Compared to the usual scathing responses managers get from Mourinho this was fairly tame and he simply stated facts. Thankfully we will only get a few more episodes in this managerial feud as Mancini is managing in Istanbul for the foreseeable future. If anything this simply adds another wrinkle to an already fascinating cup tie.
Follow us on Twitter at @PrideOLondon
Like us on Facebook at The Pride of London