José Mourinho: England’s top four could win the Champions League with Messi

José Mourinho believes any of England’s top clubs would win the Champions League if they had Lionel Messi in their ranks. The Chelsea manager watched appreciatively as Messi inspired Barcelona to a 3-0 Champions League semi-final first-leg win at home to Bayern Munich on Wednesday.

The richness of the Barcelona success, together with the absence of Premier League teams from the last four of Europe’s elite competition, has stoked the discussion about whether England’s best are falling further behind at the highest level. Mourinho, though, said that there was no gap, only Messi.

“I think this guy makes the gap by himself,” Mourinho said. “You have doubts that Man City with Messi can win the Champions League? Or Arsenal with Messi can win the Champions League? Or Chelsea with Messi can win the Champions League? Or Man United with Messi can win the Champions League? Don’t you think? I think.”

Mourinho said that any Tom, Dick or Harry – and, in his native Portuguese idiom, Anthony – would manage in a Champions League final with Messi. “One thing is a team; another thing is a team with Messi. It is a different story,” he said.

“He played a Champions League final with [Pep] Guardiola, he is normally going to play in this season’s Champions League final with Luis Enrique and if, one day, he plays for Anthony, Anthony will go to a Champions League final with him. When people analyse teams, you have to remember that this boy makes everything different.”

Guardiola, who is now the Bayern manager, had said on the eve of Wednesday’s tie there was “no defensive system that can stop Messi, and no coach either”.

Mourinho disagreed, and he pointed out that he and his old team, Internazionale, had managed to do so in each leg of their Champions League semi-final win over Barcelona in 2010.

Mourinho has faced Messi many times – the Argentina forward’s first game for the Barcelona first-team was a friendly against Mourinho’s Porto in November 2003. But Mourinho admitted that making life difficult for Messi was the best thing that could realistically be hoped for.

“Every time I played against Messi, I spent hours studying and trying to stop him,” Mourinho said. “Many times, we were successful. Other times, we were not successful. With Inter, we stopped him in both matches [of the semi-final].

“The best way to do it is man-to-man because that is better than involving everyone. When you go man-to-man, you go with similar power – although man-to-man with him is an impossible job. Every time I was thinking about how best collectively – I am not saying stop him – to give him a difficult match. I think this is the correct word. It is not about stopping him but giving him a difficult match. That is the best you do against him.”

Mourinho said he could never see Messi leaving Barcelona, that he would remain a one-club man. “My personal opinion – no chance to leave,” Mourinho said. “Just a personal opinion. Such a big club, such a powerful club. They can’t lose that player, that player belongs to them, belongs to their people. I don’t believe [he would leave]. In football, you never know, but I don’t believe it.”

http://www.theguardian.com/football/2015/may/08/jose-mourinho-lionel-messi-champions-league-top-four

This is less about Messi and more about (not surprisingly) how much better he thinks he is than other coaches.

the length to which he goes and the contortions he performs, only to talk shit about Pep

He'll never get over Pep becoming Barca manager over him lol.
Eternal butthurt

The Franchise wrote:This is less about Messi and more about (not surprisingly) how much better he thinks he is than other coaches.

This.

Hapless_Hans wrote:the length to which he goes and the contortions he performs, only to talk shit about Pep

He'll never get over Pep becoming Barca manager over him lol.
Eternal butthurt

And this.

His words will never erase the manita he received. The sooner he gets over that, the better it will be for everyone. Including himself.

Any Dick Tom and Harry could manita José's ass if they have Messi IMO

BRB Ashley Young key contributor to Man Yoo's CL win in 2019.

Mou is a douche no doubt.

There is a lot of quotes from Mou mirin Messi this season though. I believe in his sincerity and admiration for Messi.

But you could twist his words and agenda many ways. I guess you could argue he is taking a shot at Pep, and could argue that he is throwing darts at CR7 also.

I don't think he's taking shot at someone. Just expressing his opinion on Messi.

Say what you want but he's not wrong, probably. Messi would likely make any borderline too team compete for any honours really.

He's been Messi's number one fan since the WC.

El Cujo wrote:Say what you want but he's not wrong, probably. Messi would likely make any borderline too team compete for any honours really.

Really? He's not wrong? Any " Tom, Dick or Harry" would make the CL final with Messi? So what did Tata Martino do? Tito Vilanova/Jordi Roura?

Don't know what happened, but suddenly the guy is talking sense every time I read him. I can now see why he's so successful coach. He's a realist in the football world, where most voices are low level thinkers, high level actors.

It's also about rubbing it in Cristiano Ronaldo's face IMO. Ever since Mourinho left from Madrid, seemingly on bad terms with Ronaldo, he has been lauding Messi and not saying anything good about Ronaldo.

When all he did at Madrid was praising Ronaldo and almost insulting Messi, the hypocrite.

free_cat wrote:It's also about rubbing it in Cristiano Ronaldo's face IMO. Ever since Mourinho left from Madrid, seemingly on bad terms with Ronaldo, he has been lauding Messi and not saying anything good about Ronaldo.

When all he did at Madrid was praising Ronaldo and almost insulting Messi, the hypocrite.

You praise players you coach such way, that's rule you don't break as successful coach. But if this relationship doesn't apply anymore, you can be realist and talk the truth all you want.

Harmonica wrote:

free_cat wrote:It's also about rubbing it in Cristiano Ronaldo's face IMO. Ever since Mourinho left from Madrid, seemingly on bad terms with Ronaldo, he has been lauding Messi and not saying anything good about Ronaldo.

When all he did at Madrid was praising Ronaldo and almost insulting Messi, the hypocrite.

You praise players you coach such way, that's rule you don't break as successful coach. But if this relationship doesn't apply anymore, you can be realist and talk the truth all you want.

Considering Mourinho is Portuguese and has said many times he wants to coach Portugal at some point in his career, it seems to be quite obvious that he has a feud with Ronaldo when he praise his archenemy so much and says nothing good about him anymore.

Ronaldo can still be playing for Portugal for 6 or 7 more years, Inzaghi like, considering he is basically a poacher right now.

free_cat wrote:

Harmonica wrote:

free_cat wrote:It's also about rubbing it in Cristiano Ronaldo's face IMO. Ever since Mourinho left from Madrid, seemingly on bad terms with Ronaldo, he has been lauding Messi and not saying anything good about Ronaldo.

When all he did at Madrid was praising Ronaldo and almost insulting Messi, the hypocrite.

You praise players you coach such way, that's rule you don't break as successful coach. But if this relationship doesn't apply anymore, you can be realist and talk the truth all you want.

Considering Mourinho is Portuguese and has said many times he wants to coach Portugal at some point in his career, it seems to be quite obvious that he has a feud with Ronaldo when he praise his archenemy so much and says nothing good about him anymore.

Ronaldo can still be playing for Portugal for 6 or 7 more years, Inzaghi like, considering he is basically a poacher right now.

Does it matter what the true motive is? Surely every logical person would be saying the same things if given chance. Messi is the best goal scorer, dribbler, passer and team player at the same time, and he probably has the best vision and football intelligence as well. It's only logical to praise players like that, even more so if the hidden agenda is to attack over-glorified and self-indulgent poachers.

Harmonica wrote:Don't know what happened, but suddenly the guy is talking sense every time I read him. I can now see why he's so successful coach. He's a realist in the football world, where most voices are low level thinkers, high level actors.

Harmonica wrote: Surely every logical person would be saying the same things if given chance.

lmao you're like a Pawlowian dog.

Mourinho talking sense? Logical?

If he was saying "Messi is fantastic and almost impossible to stop", that would be one thing.

Instead he's saying:
"Any random guy as coach would lead a team with Messi into CL final", which basically is nothing but José saying Pep is not better than any random guy as coach.

Then he says this:
"The best way to stop Messi is man-to-man marking.
That's better than involving everyone else.
Man-marking him is an impossible job.
That's why you have to think about it collectively"

Lmao talking logical sense

As example of the opposite, recent Maradona comment of having agenda and talking nonsense.

Maradona - "Cristiano is a predator in front of goal. You can’t let Cristiano shoot from anywhere in the opposition half.

Goalkeepers are scared of him. You have to be honest, goalkeepers are scared of Cristiano. They are not so scared of Messi in those areas because he doesn’t have the same power as Cristiano."

Now Maradona's agenda is obviously to attack Messi, but he does this by talking complete drivel because he can't attack Messi in a logical way



You can't let an average shooter shoot, and you're less afraid a complete anomaly? It's the complete opposite what Mourinho is saying.

That's the difference between being logical with agenda, and being a dunderhead with agenda.

I applaud every human with logic, and I applaud Mourinho being a logical person.

The Franchise wrote:

El Cujo wrote:Say what you want but he's not wrong, probably. Messi would likely make any borderline too team compete for any honours really.

Really? He's not wrong? Any " Tom, Dick or Harry" would make the CL final with Messi? So what did Tata Martino do? Tito Vilanova/Jordi Roura?

Yeah but he's saying this under the idea that you are adding Messi to a top 4 EPL team, and realistically I think he understands the limitations of analyzing by a single year. Give that Barcelona team to almost any manager for 5 years and they are very likely to at least make a CL final I would imagine.

El Cujo wrote:

The Franchise wrote:

El Cujo wrote:Say what you want but he's not wrong, probably. Messi would likely make any borderline too team compete for any honours really.

Really? He's not wrong? Any " Tom, Dick or Harry" would make the CL final with Messi? So what did Tata Martino do? Tito Vilanova/Jordi Roura?

Yeah but he's saying this under the idea that you are adding Messi to a top 4 EPL team, and realistically I think he understands the limitations of analyzing by a single year. Give that Barcelona team to almost any manager for 5 years and they are very likely to at least make a CL final I would imagine.

Except they haven't got there since Pep left and quite frankly they are only getting now because of Suarez and Neymar.

Shooting at Pep, IMO. Exaggerating as usual, but again, not entirely wrong, either.

Taking indirect shot at Sabella too, methinks.

So according to Mourinho, adding Messi to this team would win the CL

Righto

Coachessi can win with any manager, hense the name