OK JOSE, OPERA DUET FROM NOW
SYDNEY FC’s Graham Arnold came into the room first, his face furrowed with a frown that suggested someone had told him a referee had just bought the house next door.
Then Jose Mourinho followed, with an apologetic little wave and a smile of acknowledgement for those present from Chelsea’s triple EPL winning coach.
When Chelsea captain John Terry anticipated playing in front of an 83,000-strong “hostile” crowd tomorrow, Arnold looked at him.
“I can promise you one thing John, the crowd will be more on your side,” he said, even making Mourinho grin.
The Chelsea coach described his side’s “responsibility to play well, to play our best players, to try to win, and to give the supporters a good experience’’.
Back came Arnold. “We’ll give it our best shots but Jose, you don’t have to play your best team,” he said.
“We’re good hosts but we’re not that good.”
Then Mourinho was asked, tongue in cheek, if the prospect of an away game in front of such a huge crowd meant he was tempted to “park the bus” and load up his defence.
“When the opponent has the ball you have to park the bus all the time,” he said, grinning.
“If the opponent doesn’t score goals you have more chances to win.
‘‘But I can give already a tip to the coach Arnold. My three attacking players will be (Loic) Remy, Diego Costa and Eden Hazard.
‘‘So if you park the bus with those three, be careful.”
Arnold replied: “We have a double decker bus.”
Mourinho said of his club’s visit to Australia: “For us it is very important as a club, when we have not been here for a long, long time, and as we come as champions we have an even bigger responsibility.
“Having 83,000 is huge, it’s fantastic, and we want to play well.
“So I’m not saying we are at the top of our potential, but we are good enough to give the fans a good show, and give our opponents what they expect, which is a good game.”
Arnold said of his club’s 1-0 loss at ANZ Stadium on Saturday night to Tottenham Hotspur: “It was a wonderful opportunity to play Tottenham, and we had a number of 17and 18-year olds on the field.’’