Mourinho: “Chile and Netherlands deserve all the credit for taking down Spain”

by Guilherme Neto

José Mourinho Yahoo's Football Global Ambassador in the FIFA World Cup 2014

Following the confirmation of Spain‘s premature exit of the FIFA World Cup, many have been the voices criticizing Vicente del Bosque and most of “La Roja” players. The “end of an era” they said, or the “death of the tiki-taka” others pointed out. In one of his several FIFA World Cup analysis for Yahoo, Chelsea‘s manager José Mourinho looked back at some key points to retain from what happened in Group B so far and shares his particular take on the matter.

Mourinho: “When a team isn’t winning what it is supposed to win, it’s always very easy to change things and get the acceptance of everyone for doing it. However, when a team has been winning on a regular basis, those changes don’t come easy. How many times in the past have we seen a football club becoming champion and delaying several inevitable changes for the upcoming season? It’s something hard to do from an emotional point of view! Those are decisions that necessarily involve many risks, since we never know how the next season will end up unfolding…”, insightfully noted the former Real Madrid manager, who already had to deal with several situations in his clubs where he had to let important people go when preparing new seasons.

One of the most recent examples is Frank Lampard, a player who has rightfully earned his legendary status in Chelsea FC and who will be leaving next season in order to play in the United States. This case might not be the best example to compare with the Spanish National Team situation though, since Chelsea didn’t exactly finish last season with plenty of silverware in their hands.

Mourinho: “Therefore, these situations that happen in football clubs are very similar to what we see taking place in National Teams. A winning period of 4 to 6 years is a lot of time and naturally there’s always a sense of an obligation to show some gratitude towards the players for what they have done in a recent past”, commented the Portuguese manager, alluding to the fact of the Spanish National Team not having carried through the renewal process that was demanded before coming into this FIFA World Cup 2014 that is being held in Brazil.

However, the very experienced tactician also wanted to outline the fact that Spain didn’t face anything near to an average opposition in Group B. They were drawn with Netherlands, Chile and Australia, and this group wasn’t called one of the “Groups of Death” by chance…

Mourinho: “Even though Spain didn’t earn a single point in their first 2 games and their only goal ended up being from the penalty-kick spot, I think it’s only fair to say that the main responsible for their downfall were the Netherlands and Chile. They simply did what teams in modern football have to do. Everyone has to be strategic these days and both those teams approached their games against Spain very well prepared from that point of view. Spain on the other hand, failed to adapt their game to their opponents and that costed them an early exit in this World Cup”, concluded the Chelsea manager, who has been named Yahoo’s Global Football Ambassador during the 2014 FIFA World Cup.

Watch Mourinho commenting this issue on video: