After winning the Premier League for the first time, former Arsenal and current Chelsea FC midfield star Cesc Fabregas shared his delight with the world. He posted statuses on Facebook, photos on Instagram, and even shared a photo or two on Snapchat. In the midst of the celebrations, Fabregas found the time to give high praise to his current manager Jose Mourinho.
Fabregas has played under some great managers in Arsene Wenger, Pep Guardiola, and Vincente Del Bosque but he has given Mourinho the edge over all of them. The Spaniard told ChelseaFC.com, “Every single day he makes you be at the top of your game. He knows how to get the best out of you and that’s what you want as a manager. A manager that can motivate a player every three days in a season when you play 60 games a season is not easy, trust me.”
He continued to praise Mourinho and said, “He loves winning. He has some edge that goes above anyone I have been with, a mentality he shows in every single training session and in every game. I now can understand why he has won what he has won in his career.”
Mourinho’s critics always criticize for supposedly handcuffing attacking players with defensive duties and while he may ask more from them than other managers he does it for a reason. Fabregas felt that the responsibilities given to him by Mourinho actually encouraged him to play better and did not hold him back.
He said, “[Mourinho] has made me feel very important within the team. He allows me to play the way I feel and that is very important for my confidence. He has made me feel things that I didn’t feel for a while. He allows me to give speeches, to feel like a leader and to feel important to the team. That’s good for a player.”
Who could have predicted that just a few years after being Chelsea FC’s public enemy number one that he would be such a vital player for the Blues? From being captain at Arsenal, to a bit player at Barcelona, to now the assist king at Stamford Bridge in just a few years is a remarkable journey.
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Another wrinkle to the journey is that it seemed that Mourinho and Fabregas always seemed at odds in the media. Their most recent spat came in Fabregas’s last season when Mourinho claimed that this was the weakest Barca team he had seen in years. Fabregas responded and told him to shut his mouth and perhaps Mourinho enjoyed the fire that the Spaniard showed in that moment.
Whatever the case may be, Mourinho made Fabregas one of his primary targets last summer and he got his man like he usually does. The pair went from enemies to friends with a few phone calls and the stroke of a pen. Fabregas finally got to experience life under Mourinho and it is clear that he loved every minute of it.
Without a shadow of a doubt Jose Mourinho is one of the best, if not the best, active managers in world football today. He has won every trophy available to him, some of them multiple times, and the only thing that escapes him is a Champions League with Chelsea FC. Perhaps players like Cesc Fabregas can give him that edge to win it the way he gave them the edge in the Premier League title race.
Photos by @cfcunoffical (Chelsea Debs). On Twitter and at cfcunofficial.com
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