Champions League – Subdued Mourinho admits to nerves
Internazionale coach Jose Mourinho was unusually subdued on Friday and his only brash prediction was that he and Bayern Munich boss Louis van Gaal would both one day lift a second Champions League title no matter who wins Saturday’s final.
Mourinho claimed Europe’s top club trophy with Porto in 2004 and Van Gaal achieved the feat with Ajax in 1995 with the pair now battling to become only the third man after Ernst Happel and Ottmar Hitzfeld to win the Champions League with a second club.
“Me and Louis will carry on in our jobs. The one that doesn’t do it tomorrow will do it in the future,” Mourinho told a news conference on Friday which included journalists from as far away as Russia, Africa and China.
The outspoken coach was otherwise reserved on the eve of what could be his greatest triumph given Inter are also on the brink of a treble, just like Bayern.
Questions about his future, amid reports he may leave for Real Madrid almost immediately after the final, were dealt with straightforwardly while he even acknowledged the self-proclaimed “Special One” would be nervous on Saturday.
“The pressure, I feel tomorrow. Tomorrow I will get up and think ‘Wow in a few hours we play the Champions League final’,” he said.
“My heart will beat a little quicker, my body temperature will rise a little bit. Later when I get to the stadium and get off the bus, it’s over. I’ll feel it’s my natural habitat.”
Mourinho has long said he is unhappy with the cynical environment of Italian football despite back-to-back league titles and will take a few days after the final to decide if he stays.
The irony of taking Inter through their final practice session at Real’s training ground and playing the club’s first European Cup final since 1972 in Real’s Bernabeu will not have been lost on Mourinho, but he refused to take the bait.
“This story of Madrid…I’ve always said it is not a problem for me. Someone who plays a Champions League final can’t think about anything else,” he said. “Tomorrow when the game finishes, I can’t say it’s my last game.”
There was humour when a Russian journalist handed the Portuguese a crown and the coach gave him his Inter jacket in return, but in truth Van Gaal’s pre-match news conference had more of the panache which had been Mourinho’s trademark.
In fact, Mourinho pointed out one example where he thought Bayern were being far more arrogant than the usual king of confidence.
“Bayern have organised celebration T-shirts. Bayern have organised an open-top bus. Bayer have planned a party.
Us…nothing,” he said before wandering out to a flash of cameras for perhaps the penultimate time as Inter coach
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