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When Jose beat Chelsea
- Updated: October 20, 2016
Jose Mourinho returns to Stamford Bridge for only the second time as an opposition manager when Manchester United face Chelsea on Super Sunday. Here, we recall how he knocked the Blues out of the Champions League on his way to lifting the trophy with Inter Milan in 2010.
“Nothing special.” That was how Jose Mourinho described the draw for the last 16 of the Champions League in December 2009, when Inter Milan were paired with his former club Chelsea. The Portuguese insisted he would treat the game like any other, but his attempts to downplay the occasion fell on deaf ears.
It was a little over two years since his acrimonious departure from Stamford Bridge, and it would be his first trip back to the stadium he called home for three glorious seasons between 2004 and 2007, when he steered the Blues to two Premier League titles, an FA Cup and two League Cups.
It was a mouth-watering tie, and Mourinho’s frosty relationship with Carlo Ancelotti only added to the spectacle. The pair had locked horns during Ancelotti’s time in charge of Inter’s rivals AC Milan in the previous season, and the lead-up to the first leg was dominated by talk of their rivalry.
Just a few days previously, Mourinho had been fined and banned for three Serie A games after making handcuff gestures as two of his players were sent off during a goalless draw with Sampdoria. It was not the first time he had courted controversy since taking over at Inter, and his antagonistic behaviour was winning few friends outside of the club.
Ancelotti insisted “the whole of Italy” would be cheering for Chelsea, and Italian newspaper La Repubblica carried a similar message: “Many hoped he would bring some maturity and culture to our football, but instead we are going backwards.”
As the storm raged around their manager, however, Inter’s players embraced the siege mentality. The Italian giants had drawn their previous three …
