• Champions League

Mourinho swipes at Di Matteo's Champions League win

Jose Mourinho has played down Roberto Di Matteo's achievement of winning the Champions League with Chelsea.

Having delivered European Cups while in charge at Porto and Inter Milan, Mourinho so far has been unable to repeat the feat with Chelsea - whose one and only success in the competition came under Di Matteo's stewardship in 2012.

• Diego Costa to score first against Schalke, at 3/1 with bet365*
• For full odds visit www.bet365.com >>
• *All odds correct at time of publishing.

The Portuguese has instead delivered Premier League titles for the club and looks on course to do so again this season, claiming that competition requires more managerial skill than the Champions League.

"Don't ask me to speak about him,'' said Mourinho when asked about Di Matteo, whose Schalke side meet Chelsea in Gelsenkirchen on Tuesday.

"The history is the history - he was on the Chelsea bench when Chelsea won the Champions League and he is a historic name in this club. I have nothing more to say.

"My name is in the history of this club. A football club is made of many, many names not one or two names or one player or one manager.

"The Champions League I say many, many times is not a consequence of a great work. You can win the Champions League in the worst season. You can finish fifth and win the Champions League. Liverpool did and Chelsea too.

"So the Champions League is something that you can not say 'this is the direction I want to go'. A knockout competition is something that always has a big percentage of unpredictability.

"I can do nothing to win it. I can only work to improve my team all the time, make a very good team like we are doing.

"Me working on the pitch, the board working at other levels to make a great team like we did in 2004/05/06.''

Chelsea can progress into the knockout stages of the Champions League with a victory over Di Matteo's and avoid tricky fixtures during a spell of important domestic games in December - and Mourinho has warned his players not to take qualification for granted.

The teams drew 1-1 at Stamford Bridge in the first round of fixtures before Di Matteo replaced Jens Keller as Schalke manager and even another draw on Tuesday would go a long way to keeping Mourinho on course to bring his first European Cup to Chelsea.

Roberto Di Matteo celebrated with John Terry after Chelsea's 2012 Champions League triumph © PA Photos

Enlarge

© ESPN Sports Media Ltd