Mourinho puts Inter memories aside ahead of emotional Champions League reunion | OneFootball

Real Madrid boss José Mourinho has said “there won’t be time to think about his beautiful past” with Inter Milan ahead of his side’s opening Champions League match. Mourinho won the 2010 Champions League with Inter, becoming the only treble-winning manager in the history of Italian football. Mourinho’s Inter defeated Bayern Munich 2-0 in the final at the Santiago Bernabéu, with current Inter boss Cristian Chivu starting at left-back that night. Sixteen years on, the two men return to the same stadium as opposition managers, but Mourinho insists neither will be thinking about their shared past glories when the whistle blows. “Chris is and always will be one of my own. I’m always happy when things go well for him,” Mourinho said.

“This isn’t a normal match for me. If Inter see me as a friend, it will be before and after the game. I don’t imagine that they would think about me like that during the match. That’s the nature of football. “It is always a pleasure to see people who represent Inter. But during the match I want to win and they want to win, and there won’t be time to think about that beautiful past.” After starting the league season strongly, Madrid suffered their first defeat on Friday, losing 1-0 away to Real Betis. The Portuguese boss says he has been impressed by his team’s response. “I liked the way my players were after the defeat,” said Mourinho. “They were dead on their feet in the changing room, then looked like they had recovered in Sunday’s training session. After analysing the game, we are more and more convinced that we played well and played as a team, and that all our missed chances were extremely unusual.” “I want to win. I want to play well, but not play well like we did against Betis and lose. I want to win.”The Betis goal came from Irish striker Troy Parrott – a player who ironically made his Spurs Premier League debut under Mourinho in 2019. The Portuguese manager will hope Chivu is not the next former player who comes back to bite him, but admits Inter have certain advantages over Madrid. “When you compare us with Inter, we are speaking about stability. We are speaking about a team that even while having changed coaches in the past six or seven years, they have stability. So Real Madrid has to gain a level of stability, but we still have to win,” said Mourinho. “Real Madrid is Real Madrid. The club has had some very complicated seasons recently, but we want to win all the time. Tomorrow and every other game. We want to win every competition.”

The Bernabéu has also played host to some of Mourinho’s most disappointing Champions League nights, having lost three consecutive semi-finals during his first spell with Los Blancos. “I have had the best and worst Champions League experiences in this stadium, but I don’t think about it, not the positive or the negative ones,” said Mourinho.“I only think that I am now Real Madrid’s manager and that tomorrow we will play in the Champions League. Tomorrow is not ultra important because it doesn’t decide anything. It’s not a knockout game. There are seven other games and I think both us and Inter will qualify. But every point is important.”