Chelsea US Tour: Chelsea 1-1 PSG (6-5 pks)
Mourinho reacts:
‘Paris St-Germain are a good team and they have good players,’.
‘They started training a couple of weeks before us, they have already four matches in their legs and they are clearly one step ahead of us in their preparation, so this was a fantastic test for us from the physical point of view. It was very important for us.’
‘That is because he is not so tired as the others,’ explained Mourinho, ‘because he trained two days and the others 10 days and they are accumulating fatigue. Falcao, Willian and Juan Cuadrado are with the sharpness but without the fatigue so they looked good, and it was good for them to play this 20 minutes and it was good for Falcao from the penalty spot to put the ball into the net.’
‘Aurier is not a player who normally plays in the PSG team. Normally they play with Thiago Silva and David Luiz and Marquinhos. So he had a chance, he faced the game like a big game and it was important for him, and he was I too aggressive.
‘For me no problem, I understand football, and Diego behaved tremendously well.
‘The people gave us an atmosphere that is not normal in a friendly match,’ he added.
‘This is a match in which you are not obsessed with the result, you want to train, you make changes in the team because you have a plan for a certain amount of minutes, but the people made it a big atmosphere so thanks a lot for that.
‘It is not easy for a friendly match to bring 60,000 but this was the French champions and English champions, two big clubs with lots of big players.
‘I see the MLS, I see passion and I see the difference in the street,’ he noted on the rise of his sport in the States.
‘When me and my players go for a walk, 10 years ago it was paradise and it is not paradise anymore so I think people know us. The passion is coming and what the US Women did in the World Cup must also be a plus so I think step by step – Kala, Lampard, Gerrard, Raul – these guys must also be important for this. For 11 years I’ve been coming here and every year I come for pre-season I see a difference.’
