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Bremen give Chelsea the blues
23/11/2006 07:29 - (SA)
Bremen - Giant Germans were too much for
Chelsea to handle on the set pieces, coach Jose Mourinho said on Wednesday after his side were beaten 1-0 by Werder Bremen in a Champions League Group A match.
"We knew the most difficult situations would be the set
pieces because they have four or five players (around) 2m tall and we only two or three players strong enough in the air to cope with it," Mourinho said.
He had watched in dismay as Werder's 1.98m tall Per
Mertesacker beat Michael Ballack to a Torsten Frings corner for
the match winner.
"When a team has five players (around 2m tall) and
another has just Ballack, John Terry and (Didier) Drogba, the
other team will try to dominate every set piece."
Mourinho said that as unhappy as he was about Chelsea's
first loss in Group A, he was nevertheless pleased by the fact
that the narrow defeat was enough to secure a spot in the
knockout round.
"It's a defeat. You are never happy with defeat," Mourinho
said. "But it's a defeat that delivers us into the second stage
of the competition.
"In this very difficult group to be safe in the next round,
to be comfortable, to be the first in the group, to be qualified is an achievement. That's very important."
He also criticised Slovak referee Michel Lubos's decision to
award Werder a free-kick after Frings appeared to fall over his
own feet, which preceded the corner Mertesacker scored from.
"The linesman is right there and doesn't call it but the
referee is 30m away and decides to give a free-kick,"
Mourinho said.
"That's life. That's my life in this competition. Since I
won (the Champions League with Porto), I have not had very good
luck with decisions."
Werder coach Thomas Schaaf praised his team for learning
from their past mistakes - such as allowing Barcelona a late
equaliser earlier this season - and said they had out-fought
Chelsea all over the pitch.
"We got off to a very good start and did very well in the
one-on-one situations the full 90 minutes," he said. "Chelsea
are obviously a strong side but we didn't let up and kept them
out of our penalty box. We took the battle to them."
- Reuters
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