Jose Mourinho has said he does not care what the media write about his words as long as it motivates his Tottenham players. He has said that both he and the players are used to Champions League football, so they need the extra motivation to push on to secure a Europa League spot.
Jose Mourinho said “Because I want to motivate my players and I don’t care what you bring up and don’t bring up, I just want to motivate my players, and motivate myself too. I could think the Europa League will be a group phase – I don’t want to say countries’ names or clubs because it would be disrespectful – with some countries where you have to travel…eight or nine hours for a Europa League match. I could think of it as some matches where we play at home in the best stadium of the world will have and, if Boris allows, some spectators but not the full emotion of a big Champions League match, we need to motivate ourselves. As I said – I have won the Champions League before. The majority of my players have played in the Champions League final before. Others, they did not win it but they were constantly playing at the Champions League level. So we need motivation. What needs to be done? First of all is to be realistic, I know where the best players in the world are. I can, not here, but if we sit together having a coffee I can give you a shortlist of the best players in the world per position. For some it is easier to do it. For others it is more difficult because that is not realistic so the most important thing is to be realistic. Is to analyse the market opportunities, to analyse the clubs that are willing to sell, to analyse the player that is in the end of his contract or the last year of his contract and where the club is ready to try to have some kind of creative deals. That is a different profile so I know exactly what we need. I know exactly what I would like and how to be realistic and no problems at all. The club also knows me a little bit better now than before. I think, only Mr Levy can say it, but I think it is very easy to work with me because I am very open, I am very pragmatic.”
