Chelsea manager Jose Mourinho has stated that he wants to face Turkish side Galatasaray in the knock out stages of the Champions League when the draw is made on Monday morning, with the English clubs waiting in the wings to find out who they will be paired with.
A fixture with Galatasaray would see Didier Drogba return to Stamford Bridge, and Mourinho is realishing the opportunity to meet up with the former Chelsea great.
Drogba enjoyed a successful eight year spell at the Bridge, winningh three Premier League titles, with two of them coming under Mourinho’s management, as Chelsea won two titles in two season, as Drogba was a key figure in the spine of that Chelsea side.
Drogba left the blues in the summer of 2012, and his final act may have been his greatest, as the Ivorian slotted his Penalty past Manuel Neuer to win the Champions League for Chelsea at the Allianz Arena in the May of that year, with Drogba leaving on a free transfer to Galatasaray.
The veteran forward scored against Mourinho’s Real Madrid in Istanbul last season and set up Wesley Sneijder’s winner against Juventus to progress into the knockout stage at the Italians’ expense on Wednesday afternoon, after a weather effected tie in Istanbul. The seeding of the two sides now mean’s that they could now possibly meet in the next stage of the tournement, a possibility that Mourinho is looking forward to.
Mourinho said in his post match interview following Chelsea’s win over Steaua Bucharest.
“He [Drogba] deserves to come here,” said Mourinho when asked whether he would welcome facing a forward he admitted had almost given him “a heart attack” last season. “He deserves a reception here even better [than mine], because he deserves much more than me. He deserves to come here and get the reception I got against Hull City [on the opening weekend], but for Didier double or three times better and bigger than I had. I know what I felt. I think he deserves that. So, yes, Galatasaray is difficult. Very difficult. But I’d like Didier to be back here and feel what I felt.”
Chelsea won their group after beating the Romanian’s and will therefore be paired with either Galatasaray, Milan, Olympiakos, Zenit St Petersburg or Bayer Leverkusen in the next round. “Of course we look to the top ones that won the groups, and you see there the main candidates to win the competition, the favourites to win the competition,” said Mourinho. “But in the second position we have difficult teams. We have champions.
“You have the Russian champions, the Greek champions. A German team, Leverkusen, is always very difficult. The Turkish champions with King Didier, and Milan are Milan. They only won it seven times … so it’s hard. When we go to the knockout phase, things become very tactical one way, and very emotional in another way. It will be always difficult. The fact the second game is at home means nothing.
But, as I said before, there are teams in this moment in better condition to win the competition, or at least to be considered favourites. It’s easy to understand that Bayern Munich is a champion – they have the same team, they played three Champions League finals in four years. You have Barcelona, champions three times in the last five or six years. Real Madrid have the same players plus Gareth Bale, and reached three semi-finals in three years. So it’s easy to understand where the favourites are.
“We have to grow up, step by step. We go into new matches now for some of my players. Some of them haven’t played any games in the knockout stage of the Champions League before – they played in the group and the Europa League – so it will be a different scenario for some of them. Let’s go for the last 16. If we win, we go into the quarter-final and, with only eight teams, we can think a different way. I do not have targets, but we did have one: not to win the Europa League again. That target is done. Now we have to do the best we can in the Champions League.”
If Chelsea are paired with the Turkish side, Mourinho will come up against Wesley Sneijder, who was managed by Mourinho during his time at Inter Milan, where the Portuguese manger guided Inter to a Champions League win in 2010.
By Ben Reardon
@BenReardon1
