Chelsea manager Jose Mourinho on Tuesday vented his fury following
the broadcast of comments he made 'off the record' about striker Samuel
Eto'o, as the Premier League club prepared to face Galatasaray in the
Champions League.
The focus moved away from the first leg of their
last-16 tie in Istanbul on Wednesday to the fall-out caused by the
broadcast of what Mourinho thought was a private conversation on French
television.
On Sunday night, Canal Plus showed Mourinho talking
about Eto'o, joking that nobody knew whether the Cameroonian was 32
years old or 35 while also saying that he could be tempted to move for
Monaco's Colombian striker Radamel Falcao, because "I don't have a
centre-forward and he doesn't have a team. He plays in front of 3,000
people."
But, before Chelsea's eve of game training session at the
base of Galatasaray's rivals Kasimpasa, outside Istanbul, Mourinho hit
out at the journalist responsible for the recording.
"I think you
(all) should be embarrassed as media professionals because from an
ethical point of view you can't be happy that a colleague can record a
private conversation and make it public," said the Portuguese.
"It's not a happy comment for me, absolutely, but from an ethical point of view it's a real disgrace."
"I'm not defending what I said, I'm attacking something I think is fundamental in your area.
"From my perspective the comment is not a good one, but it's not something I would do in an official way.
"First
of all because I don't make fun, second because if there are managers
who really defend their players I am obviously one of them, and third
because Samuel Eto'o is Samuel Eto'o.
- 'No reason to be upset' -
"It
was with him that I had the best season of my career (winning the
treble with Inter Milan in 2010). He is one of the few players who is
working with me in a second different club, and a manager never does
that when he doesn't like the player or the person.
"And he has no
reason to be upset because also he said a few years ago that Mourinho
was the only person in the world he would never play for, and after one
year he was playing for me at Inter."
While Chelsea are top of the
Premier League and go into their meeting with Roberto Mancini's
Galatasaray as favourites, Mourinho's side have missed the presence of a
prolific centre-forward this season.
Eto'o, Fernando Torres and
Demba Ba have scored just 17 goals between them this season in the
league and Champions League, and the Blues have never suitably replaced
Didier Drogba, the veteran Ivorian who will line up against them at the
Turk Telecom Arena.
"I know that facing Drogba is difficult and a
strange feeling, I have to admit that. But we have to do our job just as
we know he wants to do his job," said Mourinho, who also faced his
former protege last season when his Real Madrid side beat Gala 5-3 on
aggregate in the quarter-finals of the same competition.
Chelsea
may be favourites to win the tie, but Mourinho continued to play down
their chances of lifting the trophy for the second time in three
seasons.
"We are not favourites, that's obviously (sic), but when a
team reaches the quarter-finals I think anything is possible, so I
think this round is very important for every team," he added.
