JOSE MOURINHO borrowed a famous line from Winston Churchill to gee up his Spurs Euro stars, claiming: “History is written by winners.”
The Special One is preparing last season’s beaten Champions League finalists for Tuesday’s group game with Olympiakos.
Jose Mourinho has quoted Britain’s greatest ever leader by telling Spurs players ‘history is written by winners’
Mourinho, who has twice won the European Cup as a head coach, said: “To arrive in the final is an incredible achievement — but it’s not history. History is winning.
“In the Champions League and every knockout competition there are details that are responsible sometimes for your success or your failure — if you want to call it a failure.
“The reality is 32 teams are in the group phase, so if we speak about failure and success, it’s success for one and 31 failures.
“Sometimes you don’t do it when you have incredible potential to do it — in my case, the season when I lost the semi-final on penalties with Real Madrid.
“I think that was the strongest Real Madrid of the past 15 or 20 years.
“We got to the semi- finals of the Champions League but lost in a penalty shootout where three of the best penalty takers in the world — Kaka, Ramos and Ronaldo — all missed.
“We were the best team. We didn’t win it. So sometimes details make the difference.”
Mourinho secured a 3-2 win over West Ham on Saturday in his first game as Spurs boss after replacing the axed Mauricio Pochettino last Wednesday.
Mourinho has twice won Europe’s biggest prizeCredit: Getty – Contributor
And victory over the Greeks tonight will guarantee Tottenham a spot in the Champions League knockout rounds for a third straight season.
Mourinho added: “In the case of Spurs last season, just reaching the final was an amazing achievement.
“Of course they fought for it but the VAR decision against Man City and the Lucas goal in Amsterdam…they had these little details with them.”
Source: Soccer - thesun.co.uk
