Mourinho plots to win the Championship as well as the Premiership

Ollie Irish

8th, December 2006

5 Comments

Mourinho_1 Jose Mourinho is planning a clean sweep of England’s top two divisions. The Special One has been touting the possibility of a Chelsea ‘B’ team competing further down the Football League in a different division from his ‘untouchable’ stars.

He said: "I would love to see it. I can tell you for sure that if that happened, players like Lassana Diarra, Mikel John Obi, Salomon Kalou, when they are not selected for the first team, they have a competition to play in a different level. So they should have a look. Like in Spain, they would not be allowed promotion. They don’t even play in the cup to stop the possibility of Real Madrid A against Real Madrid B."

Sounds like a desperate attempt to keep some disgruntled players at the club to me. Besides, is Saloman Kalou likely to want the likes of Dean Windass showing him what they think of big-time Charlies week in, week out?

[Rob Parker]

Posted in Chelsea

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5 Comments

  1. Jorge says:

    It is really not “a desperate attempt to keep some disgruntled players at the club.”
    As he said it is done in France and Spain and also in Portugal.
    First team players actually do not like to play in the B-team.
    It is a way of keeping players that do not play regularly in playing shape, get players coming out of injuries into game shape, get players that are coming out of the youth leagues to play in a competitive senior environment and prepare to play in the top leagues and also to take a closer look at promising youth level players.
    In the US the baseball and hockey leagues have what they call a farm system composed of lower league teams where they keep a mix of older and younger players. It is not really the same as there is not as much flow of players between the teams but the purpose is similar.

  2. Rob P says:

    Hi Jorge,
    Well, we have reserve team football for all those things. It just seems like Mourinho is trying to find something a bit glossier to keep his fringe players at the club.
    Cheers,
    Rob

  3. Jorge says:

    We had reserve teams in Portugal and it did not work very well as the reserve team competitions were not taken seriously.
    In lower leagues the teams would be competing against teams that are fighting for promotion or against relegation, which makes them more competitive.
    Moreover, also from the portuguese experience the main team “stars” do not like to play in the B-team and they rather stay home if they are not going to play on the weekend. Actually Mourinho used the B-team in Porto a couple of times for punishing some of its better players. However the younger and less experienced players did benefit from it.
    Most if not all portuguese teams do no longer have a B-team. I think they were in a pretty low division and were frustrated as they could not go up to the more competitive division right below the main one.
    So sometimes this idea can work and sometimes it can’t but I would not dismiss it as a way of Mourinho satisfying its players. I don’t even think they are as disatisfied as the tabloids portray. They have pretty nice salaries and are wining trophies.

  4. joe says:

    I doubt multimillion pound footballers such as the three mentioned are going to be satisfied with playing for a B-Team in the Championship. JM probably knows this, I just think he’s trying to get them some better games than the reserve team, he also probably can’t loan them out because I’m sure their salaries are much higher than Charlton and Sheffield United are used to paying.

  5. Lukasz says:

    I don’t see how it could be a ‘desperate attempt’ as it seems obvious that premiership teams would benefit from their reserves playing in more competitive league.
    Oh, I know. Mourinho said it…