Chelsea FC Subdue Mourinho’s Hopes with Champions League Draw

Last week Chelsea FC were held to a draw by Schalke in the Champions League and seriously dampened managers Mourinho’s hopes of becoming the first manager to win the competition with three different clubs.

Cesc Fabregas scored for Chelsea after just 11 minutes; however, Klaas-Jan Huntellar equalised in the second half. Chelsea attacked throughout the game and in the second half missed a few opportunities to retake the lead. Unfortunately for Mourinho, Schalke’s defence ultimately proved to be too well organised to break through a second time.

However, Mourinho can take solace from the knowledge that Chelsea also lost their opening Champions League game last season before going on to reach the semi-final.

Mourinho has won the competition with Porto and Inter Milan but has not been involved in a final since 2010. Realistically the team will make it out of the group stage; Chelsea is favourite to win Group G with odds of 4/11, far ahead of Schalke which has odds of 15/4.

Furthermore, the bookies clearly think that Chelsea could reach the finals as there are odds of 11/2 available on the team being the runners up. Overall they are fourth favourite to win with odds of 15/2, behind Barcelona, Bayern Munich and Real Madrid.