London – This is the 60th minute of the match, which far from won. The game was stopped before Benfica Dodie Lukbakio can give a free blow from what looks like a dangerous place on the left channel. There is an insignificant advantage 1-0, but there is only one thing that Stamford Bridge wants to do. Not the first time and last time tonight, the name Jose Mourinho is chanted for rafters.
He obliges his adoration in a wave. And the other. And the other. At four, simple recognition will no longer do, at least for the most frantic fans Chelsea Former manager. Scarfs with the upper knot and summer, a fan of a whip, begs Mourinho to turn and allow him the best selfies.
So much for football, the real star of the show is a person who goes far beyond his technical field. When red and blue shirts compete for ownership, Mourinho costs only half a foot. It is imperial. All this is him, the house that Jose built.
Fans of Chelsea spent the past four years, fixing the teams as excellently arrogant and ruthlessly competitive as special. Before Clearlyak, the identity of this club was no less determined by Roman Abramovich and his billions than the atmosphere Jose Mourinho, filled with the first day. Each game mattered. Chelsea players will fight opponents, their officials, their employers. The rules could be bent – the football association seems to think so – because the victory had a meaning above all things.
And it was a rather depressing side of the return of Mourinho. All the keys, a game with a crowd, a yellow card in death: they should strive for anything. What made Mourinho one of the great characters of the game is how his qualities translate themselves on the field. Even when his teams cost hundreds of millions, they play with the spirit of the losers. They click and growl, filling the competition with a sense of danger.
Not this time. Perhaps this is just a function that it coincides with two of the eight phase of the gaming league. The manual denouement of the exact game designated the same amount. Richard Rios’s own goal will not decide whether Benfica will reach the stages of a knockout with a top -24 finish. Perhaps this is not a decisive game in Chelsea, which won until the last 16.
Nevertheless, the simple presence of Mourinho at the top of his abilities would significantly raise bets. He will always be treated in this part of London, but he should also be afraid. Enzo Maraska unfolds what looked as if she would take place for an attack in the League of the Conference of last season, perhaps the heavily turned side of Chelsea was still far ahead of Benfica in talent. When Mourinho swayed from the Internet, Manchester United Or Tottenham, he was given the same compression that he received tonight. This came with a warning, mind. The meetings will soon begin, and the players of Mourinho would offer Chelsea No. quarter.
If it was something like this evening, it could go very wrong for Marask, who really did not need an outstanding predecessor returning at a time while his team hesitated. The performances corresponding to their titles have not come until today, and they also did not come today. The world champions were not very good. They should not have been. Their visitors worked hard and arched the danger of flanks, especially through Lukbakio, but it seemed really threatened by Robert Sanchez only when Frederick Aursneus was in offsay. Benfica did not have bus parking, but this team lacked the armed and motor to test Marez to fully test. When Mourinho noticed that the discovery that he would attack in his prime, he was closed in an instant.
“I tried to change the left winger, because I saw how much trouble was a little,” he said. “Little -GUSTO in the complexity of the MALA densely. Maraska scored the best player than little [Reece James]The field is a task to encounter Chelsea.
Ultimately, if the second half felt that he was being built for something, it was a Mourinho press conference after the match, which, although he, although he was this suppressed example of returning home. As on Monday, Mourinho hugged old friends and indulged his more reflecting side. It almost seemed that the cameras pointed to his conversations and a bunch of cookies, the question of what happened on the field was rather parked aside.
When he spoke English, he had a legacy: this is a familiar reminder of his dismissal before he could bring the trophy in the “spurs”, which is persistent, that he is more motivated than when to win silver, which confirms his position in Chelsea.
“I thank them,” he said to those who so welcomed him home. “I'm not on the field, I was focused on the game, but you have a sound. When I am in London, I meet them every day. I know that relations will remain forever.
“I hope I will come here with my grandchildren in 20 years. They belong to my story. I belong to their history. “
Although, isn't it? Now the whole story. Mourinho can say: “I do not feed myself with memories, I feed myself victories and results,” but he has long lost his teeth and claws to remove the largest prey.
The days when he was one of the big animals, ended when he left Tottenham, if not earlier. But first, drifting to Italy, then to Turkey and now returning to where it all began, the decline can be left without support. Not tonight. It was a night to celebrate what he was once. The fact that he still cannot feel relevant at night of the Champions League.
