Chelsea boss Jose Mourinho is almost always outspoken, and he again lived up to his reputation on the occasion of the Blues reaching the knockout round. Speaking after the match Mourinho said
“A team struggling so much like we are is not obviously a candidate to win the Champions League,” said Mourinho.
“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.”
“I think everybody wants to play us,” Mourinho added. “They don’t want to play Barcelona, they don’t want to play Real Madrid, they don’t want to play Atletico [Madrid], they don’t want to play Bayern [Munich].
“Every team finishing second want to get us, they want to get Zenit [St Petersburg],” he concluded.
It’s easy to guess why; Chelsea have been struggling in the lower part of the table all year; hovering just above the relegation zone.
Jose Mourinho has won the European Cup twice, and Monday he’ll find out who his next opponent will be. Chelsea can play Paris Saint-Germain for a third straight season in the Champions League. So let’s hope we don’t have Blues supporters doing horribly racist things and singing horribly racist songs at a Paris metro stop again like we did last season.
The other five teams that Mourinho and company could face in the round of 16- PSV Eindhoven, Benfica, Juventus, Roma or Gent.
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Banks, a former writer for the Washington Times, currently contributes to the Chicago Tribune RedEye. He also appears regularly on numerous television and radio talk shows all across the country. Catch him Tuesdays on KOZN 1620 The Zone.