The team Jose Mourinho built in his first spell at Chelsea was a brilliant one, worth of being voted among the top 10 teams not only in the Premier League, but in the history of English football.
Sky Sports’ Monday Night Football from earlier this season went through each and every one of the greatest sides this country has produced, and decided that 6th was the best spot for Jose’s first Chelsea side.
Gary Neville, who played for our rivals Manchester United at the time, was in a great position to explain exactly what made this team so good, but also giving an insight on the one thing that the Portuguese coach regretted not managing in his first spell in charge:
“Sir Alex Ferguson knew that he was up against a special manager who was on a roll with a fantastic team. We just couldn’t compete with them at that time,” Neville explained.
“Jose’s one regret of that period is that he didn’t win the Champions League with that team.”
It’s a painful and understandable regret to have. We probably were Europe’s best team in that spell, and we showed it with big wins over Barcelona and Bayern Munich and the like.
Sadly we always fell at the last hurdle, and we had to wait some years for our European Cup – won in a glorious fashion, but with an undeniably inferior team to the one mentioned above.
