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Jose Mourinho has revealed that the first Chelsea fan he met at Stamford Bridge in 2004 asked him to stay away from the club. The Portuguese manager recalled that they wanted Claudio Ranieri to remain in charge of the Blues.
Speaking to The Telegraph, Mourinho claimed that he went to Stamford Bridge before he was appointed as the manager.
In May 2004, Mourinho visited the Blues' home ground to watch them take on AS Monaco in the second leg of the UEFA Champions League semifinals. On the previous day, he had secured his FC Porto side's progression to the competition's final. He said:
“The reason I went to Chelsea was because of the meetings I had with Roman [Abramovich] and Peter Kenyon, and the objective from the club, before being my objective, was to win the Premier League as soon as we could. And, of course, that could be the first season and that had to be the motivation."
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“I had the feeling that Roman wanted fundamentally a change of mentality. I remember the first time I went to Stamford Bridge was before the Champions League final [with Porto]. I qualified for the final on Tuesday and on Wednesday I went to Stamford Bridge for Chelsea-Monaco. The first guy that came to me told me, ‘We don’t want you here, we love Ranieri.’ That was my first experience of Stamford Bridge.”
Chelsea drew 2-2 on the night and were knocked out of the competition as AS Monaco had won the first leg 3-1. Mourinho went on to win the 2004 Champions League with Porto and then joined the Blues in June, just over a week after the final.
"Eye-opening for us all" - Frank Lampard on working with Jose Mourinho at Chelsea
Frank Lampard spoke to The Telegraph as well and claimed that Jose Mourinho had a road map for Chelsea to become champions even before the pre-season had begun. He claims that the manager was confident of getting them over the line after finishing second in the previous season and said:
“I recall the confidence with which José spoke from day one of pre-season. We went to Seattle and he had a meeting where he laid out what we needed to do to be champions. We’d come second the year before, so we weren’t a million miles away but he came in then and mapped out we’d be champions at that point, which on day one of pre-season was eye-opening for us all."
Jose Mourinho won the Premier League title in the 2004/05 season with then-record 95 points and lost just once in the season – a 1-0 defeat to Manchester City. The Blues also conceded just 15 goals in the Premier League – a record that still remains intact.
