Jose Mourinho addressed the media after the team landed in the Bulgarian capital.
“At the very least we have to give ourselves the chance to finish first in the group and win. We know it’s not easy, for me CSKA is better than the single point in the standings they have. Even against us the result was not honest, the match was difficult and it will certainly be like this tomorrow but we will try to win.”
“Obviously the first place decides the group, we want to continue playing this competition, but tomorrow we can only define first or second place.”
“Now the Conference League will have 8 more teams that will drop from Europa League, we have to wait but we cannot hide the fact that we want to go as far as possible in this competition.”
On the preparations for the match after the loss to Inter:
“We have left out all the players who were injured, we have not recovered anyone for this match.”
“We will also leave someone else out because we have many games and many players with problems and we cannot risk everyone.”
“We will play with the strongest team possible. Going forward we will have a structure with 4-5 players who always play. The goal does not change: we respect CSKA, but we want to win.”
On how he’s changed over the years since winning the Champions League:
“I haven’t changed much, I’ve been coaching for many years but I have the same passion as I did when I first started out.”
“Maybe I’m more calm and experienced in managing the various moments of ups and downs in a season.”
“In 2004 I had the dream of winning the Champions League, now I dream of winning the Conference League. They are two different competitions, but this is the competition we are in and we will see if it is possible to win it. Winning the first edition would be historic.”
