Jose Mourinho and Chelsea FC will look to bounce back from the disappointment of Wednesday’s 4-2 loss against the New York Red Bulls when they line up against PSG at Bank of America Stadium in Charlotte, NC tomorrow night. Ahead of the game, the boss shared his thoughts.
Mourinho spoke of the importance of perspective in these pre-season matches by comparing them to previous meetings with PSG: “Those were proper matches, those were Champions League matches in the knockout phase.”
The Chelsea manager is referring to the Blues’ exit from the Champions League last season at the hands of the French team with a familiar face in David Luiz scoring a crucial goal for his new club in the Stamford Bridge half of the tie.
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Mourinho went on to say: “For me this is preparation. It doesn’t matter whether it is Paris St-German, New York Red Bulls or Montreal Impact, for me it means nothing to play against PSG in a friendly. I don’t know what they have in their mind, I don’t know if they have as an objective to win this competition; if it is part of their motivations to play and to win against Chelsea.”
It must be stressed that it is just a pre-season fixture, meaningless in the grand scheme of a long and arduous campaign, but a win or at least a spirited performance would be a tremendous boost for the Blues heading into the season.
Granted, the Red Bulls meeting was Chelsea’s first match since the post-season of the last campaign which saw the Blues hoist the Premier League trophy as champions for the 4th time in their history, but the performance was shocking.
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Now, the players have had a full fixture to build up their match fitness as well as in-game sharpness for the showdown with PSG: “Nearly every player played 45 minutes, three of them played 90 minutes, and the day after some recovered and some trained. On Friday it is one session and I expect my team to be a little more fresh,” said Mourinho.
Jose is not shy about using the full squad in a pre-season match, and I would expect that to continue tomorrow night. As meaningless as the final score may be, a good performance from the key players in the side against top quality competition would be a positive step towards the Community Shield match against Arsenal, and the season opener against Swansea on August 8th.
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