Benfica have confirmed the appointment of Jos\u00e9 Mourinho as their new manager, a move that arrives just over a week before the Portuguese side travel to face his former employers Chelsea in the Champions League.<\/p>\n
On his return to the Lisbon team Mourinho said: \u201cI have so many emotions, but I think experience helps me control them,\u201d and added, \u201cI want to thank you for the trust, the honour I feel at this moment.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s been 25 years, but I\u2019m not here to celebrate my career. It\u2019s been 25 years in which I\u2019ve had the opportunity to work for the biggest clubs in the world. And to conclude this speech, as a representative of this club, I\u2019d like to say that none of the other giant clubs I\u2019ve had the opportunity to coach have made me feel more honoured, responsible, or motivated than being the coach of Benfica.\u201d<\/p>\n
Mourinho will oversee a small number of domestic fixtures before making the trip to Stamford Bridge to meet Chelsea on Sept. 30. The fixture arrives early in his stint and will be watched closely because of his history with the Blues.<\/p>\n
Having managed 321 games over two spells with the Blues and brought three Premier League titles to the club, Mourinho is widely hailed as perhaps the greatest manager in Chelsea history. That legacy has not been overlooked by the current Chelsea boss.<\/p>\n
Asked if he is excited by the idea of facing Mourinho in less than two weeks, Maresca responded: \u201cAbsolutely. Absolutely, yes.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe\u2019s a legend for the club, he\u2019s a legend in general for the trophies and achievements.\u201d<\/p>\n
The appointment sets up a high-profile reunion in the Champions League, with Mourinho and his new squad arriving at Stamford Bridge after a short domestic run of fixtures. The immediate focus for Benfica will be preparation for that trip and the start of Mourinho\u2019s latest spell in charge.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Mourinho returns to Benfica and will face Chelsea at Stamford Bridge on Sept. 30; Maresca reacts …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2884,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1027,190],"tags":[1042],"class_list":["post-2885","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-benfica","category-chelsea","tag-mourinho"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2885","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2885"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2885\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2884"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2885"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2885"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2885"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}