Chelsea manager Jose
Mourinho on Tuesday likened the current Paris Saint-Germain side to the team he
managed at Stamford Bridge 10 years ago as the clubs prepare to meet in the
Champions League.
Wednesday's quarter-final first leg at the Parc des Princes is a
repeat of Mourinho's first European game in charge of Chelsea, which an
English
side containing Petr Cech, John Terry and Frank Lampard won 3-0 in the group
stage in September 2004.
Back then, while PSG struggled to live in the shadows of Lyon in
their domestic game, Chelsea were emerging as a major power in Europe a year on
from the arrival of Russian billionaire Roman Abramovich as owner. Under
Mourinho, the Blues never made it beyond the semi-finals in the Champions
League, a trophy they finally won in 2012 before also winning the Europa League
last season.
But while Chelsea are now
firmly established as one of Europe's elite, PSG are less than three years into
an ambitious project led by their mega-rich Qatari owners, something which
reminds Mourinho of what he first walked into at Stamford Bridge.
"You can find
similarities. When Mr Abramovich bought the club he was ready and keen and the
football rules were open to that, so the investment was important," said
the Portuguese, who hinted that UEFA's new Financial Fair Play rules, limiting
what clubs can spend, may eventually have an impact on Paris.
"Ours' was probably the most important investment in that
period and as a consequence of that Chelsea built year after year some of the
best teams in European football.
"Paris is doing the same, some people don't understand very
well how it will look with Financial Fair Play, but the reality is that in the
last two years the investment was massive, that the choice of players was
fantastic.
"Leonardo (the
former sporting director) started here a fantastic period of spending money but
buying the right players.
"At this moment, the
team is full of really good players, the passion in the city is also good and
the Parc des Princes is a beautiful place to play."Now they are dominant
in France the same way Chelsea was chasing season after season the Champions
League, reaching semi-finals and finals. They are doing the same and they want
to win."
Torres set to lead Chelsea line
Despite the differing
levels of experience of the two clubs at this level, and the fact that Mourinho
has won the Champions League twice before with Porto and Inter, he believes PSG
have enough in their squad to be considered favourites to win the tie.
"I don't think
experience plays a big role. Maybe Paris as a club over the last decade doesn't
have the same experience but you go player by player and the picture is not
like that. "Thiago (Silva), Alex, (Thiago) Motta, Maxwell, Ibrahimovic,
(Edinson) Cavani, all of them, they have big experience in the competition. "In our case, as a club we are in the
Champions League season after season and we have a nucleus of players who've
played lots of games but we also have others with no experience."
While PSG can call upon
two strikers, in Zlatan Ibrahimovic and Cavani, who have scored a grand total
of 61 goals between them this season, Chelsea continue to have problems in
attack. Samuel Eto'o, who has scored 11 times since moving to Stamford Bridge
at the start of the season, did not form part of the 19-man squad that
travelled to Paris on Tuesday lunchtime. The Cameroon striker continues to
struggle with a hamstring injury, so Fernando Torres is likely to lead the
visitors' attack.
Ashley Cole is also injured and January signings Nemanja Matic
and Mohamed Salah are inelgible in Europe but Brazilian midfielder Ramires can
play here while serving a domestic suspension.
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