Football General Manager
- Mourinho managed Chelsea twice
- His first team "best PL side ever"
- Rages over Liverpool‘s 2005 ‘ghost goal’
Fenerbahce manager Mourinho believes that his Chelsea side between 2004-06 tops the pile for the best-ever Premier League teams, edging out Arsenal‘s ‘Invincibles’ in 2003-04, as they secured more wins along the way. He also said that the Blues didn’t win the Champions League in 2005 because there was “no goal-line technology”, in reference to Luis Garcia’s infamous “ghost goal” for Liverpool in the semi-finals of that year’s tournament.
When asked which team he left the most of his fingerprints on, Mourinho told Canal 11: “I think my FC Porto stayed. I think Chelsea was the best Premier League team ever. It’s been 20 years since that team. Arsenal were invincible, but they were invincible in one season. We were more invincible than them in two seasons. They won 38 games, we won 46. But those 46 were spread across two seasons. They were a fantastic team. We didn’t win the Champions League because there was no goal-line technology. Inter won everything. But, for example, Roma gave me tremendous pleasure. I don’t want to go so far as to say we made great omelettes without eggs; that would be disrespectful to my people, but winning the Conference League, even if it’s the Conference, and reaching the Europa League final with the difficulties we had… For me, it was one of the most beautiful things. I managed to unite a club that wasn’t united, bringing in the fans who had ‘fled.’ We made Rome empty twice when we reached both finals. It gave me special pleasure. Here at Fenerbahçe… The first year was like discovering a new world. Not even my Instagram, with some somewhat enigmatic or sarcastic posts, made people realize it. Today, we’ll see if my experience helped me better prepare for this new season.”
Mourinho will go down as one of the best Premier League managers ever and an all-time managerial great in football. But while his Chelsea side romped to the Premier League title in 2005, his team didn’t go unbeaten in one season, and Manchester City and Liverpool have since eclipsed their points total, too.
While 63-year-old Mourinho continues to draw headlines on a whole raft of topics, the ex-Real Madrid manager will hope his Fenerbahce side can beat Al-Ittihad in a pre-season friendly on Wednesday night.
