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Tuesday, 17 February 2015

Mourinho: I turned down PSG job to return to Chelsea

Jose Mourinho turned down the chance to manage Paris Saint-Germain and now has his eyes firmly set on Champions League glory with Chelsea.

The 52-year-old admitted he met the Ligue 1 champions' wealthy owners Nasser Al-Khelaifi and Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al-Thani while he was in charge of Real Madrid and was even offered the job in 2011 and 2013, but opted to return to Stamford Bridge instead.

With Chelsea set to take on PSG in the last 16 of the Champions League on Tuesday night, Mourinho has no regrets over his decision.

“I know the PSG project well", he said. "I know it well because when they started this project with the owner, the president and Leonardo, I was to be the coach.

“I met them in Qatar. The project was to start ­dominating in France, then Europe. The domination in France is there, they are champions, champions, champions.

“They know they are going to be champions. They know other teams will not resist and that they can even lose a few matches.

“But I didn’t go because I was at Real Madrid and it was a real ambition for me to be a champion in Spain, England and Italy. It was not the right moment for me to go".

Mourinho's focus is now firmly on Chelsea, and the Portuguese insists that the rigours of English football mean that winning the Premier League and Champions League with the Londoners would rank as a far greater achievement than doing the same elsewhere on the continent.

“Chelsea finished 25 points behind the ­champions and stopped playing for the title around November or December, because a team that is playing in this country to win every game, to try to be champions and to be top of the league and competing top one, top two, minimum top three, is a completely different profile.

“It’s a big achievement for any English club to do that, not just for us. It’s a big achievement to win the Premier League for any club".

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