Jose Mourinho has confirmed he will take charge of Chelsea later this week.
'I'm going to London on Monday and at the end of the week I will be the manager of Chelsea,' he said to leading Spanish TV football show Punto Pelota. 'I feel the people there love me and in life you have to look for that.
'Life is beautiful and short and you must look for what you think is best for you.'
But never have the words ‘the bitter end’
been more apt as Mourinho took charge of his last game at Real
Madrid on Saturday before returning to Stamford Bridge.
He left the Bernabeu on
Saturday night without saying goodbye to Cristiano Ronaldo, Pepe and
Iker Casillas, having suggested all three had deliberately ruled
themselves out of his last game in charge.
Mourinho had left
as many as 10 first-team players out of his final squad for Saturday’s
visit of Osasuna, but claimed that, while many were injured and had been
ruled out by the club’s medical staff, Ronaldo, Casillas and Pepe had
all taken it upon themselves to miss the last game.
He told Spanish television channel Intereconomia:
‘The players not in the team had either been declared injured by club
doctors, or have declared themselves injured. Pepe, Cristiano and
Casillas all ruled themselves out with back pain. They did not train all
week and they did not train very well last week either.’
The
disintegration of player-coach relations after Real Madrid’s Champions
League semi-final exit against Borussia Dortmund intensified after the
charade of the Spanish Cup final, which Real lost with both Mourinho and
Ronaldo sent off. It had reached such levels that it seems the star
players wanted no part in their coach’s send-off.
Ronaldo was also in the tunnel waiting to be awarded a post-season prize and not a word was exchanged between the pair.
Pepe
and Casillas appeared at the top of the stairs that lead to the
dressing room, ready to watch the game from the private players’ boxes
high up in the Bernabeu.
They
looked down on Ronaldo. He looked at Mourinho, who looked out on to the
pitch, avoiding eye contact with his three errant players.
It
was an image to sum up a tempestuous last season in charge when, for
the first time in his career, the Special One had lost the dressing
room.
‘We have to learn for next season,’ said Arbeloa. ‘With the new coach, we have to be united with everyone helping each other.
‘This
coach (Mourinho) has won wherever he has gone and it is strange that
here, where he had the best squad he has ever had, is where he has won
the least.’
The divisions in the dressing room were, as ever, replicated in the stands of the Bernabeu.
The manager who built winning teams
at Chelsea, Inter Milan and Porto on the foundation of unbreakable
dressing-room unity was unable to do the same at Real Madrid. Straight
after Saturday’s 4-2 win, Arbeloa suggested that Mourinho was let down
by selfish players.
The
Spain defender said: ‘Mourinho gave everything for the club, always
putting it first and sometimes his image was affected by that. I am not
sure everyone else, players included, can say the same.
‘A
lot of us worried that we might look bad in the media. We worried about
having a good public image and we spoke always for our own benefit.
There is a good group of players here and we all have a good
relationship but perhaps we lacked maturity at times.’
The
split between Mourinho and his players was never as clear as in the
tunnel before the final home game of the season as he waited until the
last moment possible to take to the pitch.
Source: Daily Mail
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