Mourinho: I wish good to Benitez

Real Madrid coach Mourinho, speaking after the Spanish champions secured qualification for the Champions League knockout stages after a 1-1 draw against Manchester City, won two Premier League titles for Chelsea before his three-year reign as manager came to an abrupt end in September 2007.

With Di Matteo the latest of his Chelsea successors to incur the wrath of Russian owner Abramovich, Mourinho admitted that could empathise with the Italian.

“I’m never happy when a manager is sacked – never, because it happens to them and it can happen to me,” Mourinho said. “I’m never happy and I never enjoy it for him. I always feel sorry for him and his family because our lives are very, very similar. But everybody knows I like my old teams. I like Chelsea, Inter, Porto. I like my old clubs to win, so I always wish good to the managers of my former clubs. So I wish good to Benítez.”

Having steered Real through the group stages, Mourinho appeared to aim a barbed dig at City manager Roberto Mancini – his predecessor as Inter Milan coach – by claiming it was “amazing” that the Premier League champions failed to qualify for the next round.

“When you look at the array of players they [City] have, it is amazing that they have been eliminated at the group stage for two years running,” Mourinho said. “They had thousands of attacking options, limitless options and we had just 10 men, but we held on. We knew we had to control the game. You can’t play to win when it’s 11 v 10, but we held on and achieved our objective.”

Mancini’s position is under no threat at City, however, and Mourinho insisted it was correct that the Italian has the support of owner Sheikh Mansour bin Zayed al Nahyan.

“I think that’s good,” Mourinho said. “I think a club must support its manager the maximum they can until the last day when they decide to make a change. We cannot complain. We have to carry on, but until the last day, I admire that the clubs support the manager.

“City is out of Champions League, but Madrid and Dortmund are very good teams and we knew with this group from the beginning that a good team would be out.

“It is good that it is City eliminated because Roberto can work without any problems. If it was me, the press would not let me return to Madrid!”

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Source: Telegraph