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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