Chelsea's Jose Mourinho gets narky over his head-to-head record against Pep Guardiola
Chelsea's Jose Mourinho gets narky over his head-to-head record against Pep Guardiola
The former Real Madrid and Barcelona bosses renew hostilities as the Blues meet Bayern Munich in European Super Cup
Dislike a boss: Mourinho and Guardiola cross swords again in Prague
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Jose Mourinho has launched into an embarrassing rant that highlights his bitter rivalry with Pep Guardiola, writes John Cross in Prague.
Mourinho
set out to defend his poor head-to-head record against Guardiola ahead
of their latest face-off in Chelsea's Friday night European Super Cup
showpiece against Bayern Munich here in the Czech Republic.
But the Blues' boss scored a spectacular own goal by getting his stats wrong.
Mourinho,
now back in charge of Europa League winners Chelsea, has pitted his
wits against Guardiola, new coach of European champions Bayern, 15 times
over the years.
And their rivalry developed into an ugly feud while they were in charge of Real Madrid and Barcelona respectively.
But
The Special One is clearly better at management than mathematics,
because Mourinho insisted a journalist was wrong to correctly claim the
Portuguese had enjoyed just three wins in those 15 matches.
Mourinho
snapped: "Your statistics are wrong as a start. Very wrong. Very wrong.
Because... but I don't want to discuss that because it's not important.
I'll just say it's wrong.
"Go there and see what happened with
Inter in the Champions League semi-final. The league records in Spain.
The Copa del Rey in Spain. The SuperCup in Spain.
"You are very, very wrong. You are wrong. But it's not important.
"That's not me against him, it's club against club. That's not important.
"I
just know that I won the Champions League semi-final with Inter. I won
the Spanish Cup final in Valencia. I won the SuperCup in Spain. I was
champion in Spain. I won the match of the title in Barcelona with Real
Madrid.
"So, I don't know...
"Maybe you are right and I am wrong, but I don't care. It's not important for me."
The stark facts are Mourinho teams have won matches against Guardiola teams only three times, but he has won additional tie on aggregate with Inter after each club won their home leg.
Mourinho
then got further wound up when asked whether it annoyed him that he was
portrayed as an enemy of football when at Real, while Guardiola earned
all the plaudits for Barca's crowd-pleasing style of play.
Pointing
angrily to the Chelsea crest on his sweatshirt, Mourinho said: "If you
want questions about Chelsea I'm here until 4 o'clock. If you want
questions about Real Madrid and Barcelona, I'm not here.
"It's not
about me and Pep. It's about Chelsea and Bayern Munich. It's about a
SuperCup, where the European champions are playing the Europa League
champions.
"Pep is not European champion and I'm not the Europa
League champion. We're just coaching these teams. It's not about us.
It's about Chelsea and Bayern."
Mourinho also snapped when asked
about Bayern president Uli Hoeness's claim this week that Guardiola is
"miles ahead" of his Chelsea counterpart.
"It is his opinion," said Mourinho. "It's his opinion. No problem."
Chelsea
were outclassed by Atletico Madrid and Radamel Falcao in particular a
year ago when, as European Cup holders under Roberto Di Matteo, they
were humiliated 4-1 in this same fixture.
Twelve
months on, Mourinho's return to the Chelsea hot-seat gives the Super
Cup an extra edge because of the rivalry with Guardiola.
Mourinho's new signings from Anzhi Makhachkala, midfielder Willian and striker Samuel Eto'o, will not be involved against Bayern as they did not register in time.
Meanwhile, the Portuguese insisted there will be no exit for Juan Mata, whose agent was a guest of Arsenal at Tuesday's match against Fenerbahce.
Mata,
who appears to have been frozen out under Mourinho, could start here in
Prague, but the Special One insists the Super Cup is no place for
sentiment as both clubs - and indeed both coaches - are desperate to
win.
Mourinho added: "I don't like to call it a competition - it's
a match that gives a trophy. If any one of us says he doesn't want to
win a trophy, it's not true.
"It's always difficult to play
against Bayern. I've played them many times. It doesn't matter the
system or the player. It's always a powerful team, a big club. It's
always difficult. Tactics don't matter.
"Mata didn't play against Man United. It was my option.
"I
always have my reasons. I feel it's my duty to explain to the players
the reasons, and I do. It's not my duty to explain to the media the
reasons for my choices.
"But everything is clear between me and the player. We have no problem.
"He's a very important player for us, I want him to stay, he wants to stay, the club wants him to stay, and he will be a very important player for us.
"We have a lot of players in these positions behind the striker, but they can all also play wide from the side. This is the Juan: Will Mata get a run-out against Bayern?
Shaun Botterill
"Go to Man City, Arsenal, United, every big team - Tottenham,
Bayern - they've all got many options because people want to compete in
different positions.
"And it's a World Cup year, which makes it
more difficult for the national teams because, even for friendlies, they
[the players] go, they don't have rest, they travel...
"After
this match, we have a double fixture with the national teams, then
Premier League, Champions League and Capital One Cup consecutively...
"We need numbers. We can't do it with 10-12 players. We have to do it with 20. That's the reason why we strengthened our squad."
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