With the UEFA Champions League draw for the knockout stages coming up on Monday, Chelsea FC boss Jose Mourinho has claimed that every team wants to face the Blues. According to Mourinho’s logic, the Blues are seen as a favorable selection based on their current form.
Despite the early struggles in the group stage culminating in a loss at FC Porto and a draw in Ukraine against Dynamo Kiev, the Blues were able to win their group. They did so on the back of two lopsided wins against Maccabi Tel Aviv and an unconvincing win against Kiev at home.
Those struggles lead to a showdown at Stamford Bridge on the final match day of the group stages against Porto to see who would be relegated to the Europa League and who would win the group, provided that Kiev defeated Maccabi.
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For the first time in their European campaign against decent opposition, the Blues looked convincing and won by the score of 2-0, although if it was not for Diego Costa’s wayward finishing it could have been much more.
Finishing top of the group means avoiding the likes of Barcelona, Bayern Munich, and Real Madrid in the first knockout rounds but Mourinho still believes that Chelsea FC are underdogs. He spoke after the match and said:
"“I think everybody wants to play us. They don’t want to play Barcelona, they don’t want to play Real Madrid, they don’t want to play Atletico, they don’t want to play Bayern. Every team finishing second want to get us, they want to get Zenit.”Source: ESPN FC"
Chelsea FC could potentially face one of these six clubs, PSG, Juventus, PSV Eindhoven, KAA Gent, AS Roma, and SL Benfica. Only PSG could boast of having talent on par with the Blues but Juventus and Roma could pose interesting challenges as well. The storylines of Chelsea facing two of their loanees in Mohamed Salah and Juan Cuadrado would bring some added spice to the occasion.
While there is no such thing as a straightforward European tie but based on current form these teams would certainly like their chances against the Blues. Mourinho does seem to prefer being the underdog though and he said as much in his post-match comments:
"A team struggling so much like we are is not obviously a candidate to win the Champions League. But when we won at Porto in 2004 we were not candidates. When we won at Inter [Milan] in 2010 we were not candidates. When we were candidates we lost two semifinals with Real Madrid, we lost two semifinals with Chelsea, so let’s see. You never know.”Source: ESPN FC"
So as Mourinho puts it, despite their underdog status and poor league form, Chelsea FC has their opponents right where they want them. The Blues’ solitary Champions League triumph came with one of the weakest Chelsea sides in recent memory.
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A team adrift in the Premier League under Andres Villas-Boas and Roberto Di Matteo that eventually finished fifth in the table. The 2015-16 incarnations of the Blues would be lucky to finish that high but the Champions League has always been a crapshoot and Mourinho knows how to play his odds very well.