Former Chelsea manager Jose Mourinho insisted he will always be a blue as he returns to Stamford Bridge with Benfica in the UEFA Champions League on Tuesday, Afrosport reports.
The Portuguese tactician will be in West London for the eighth time after two successful stints that saw him win the Premier League thrice, the EFL Cup thrice and the FA Cup.
He joined Benfica a fornight ago, replacing Bruno Lage who was dismissed after their opening league phase home loss to Qarabag of Azerbaijan.
“Of course I will always be a blue. I’m part of their history and they are part of my history,” Mourinho said ahead of the game.
“I helped them to become a bigger Chelsea and they helped me to become a bigger Jose. When I say I’m not a blue, I hope everybody understands that I’m speaking about the job that I have to do, that I have to do.
“But in relation to these pictures, there are not many clubs that do this. Because in many, many clubs, it looks like there is a fear of what happened in the past. And there is a continuous transformation of pictures.
“Sometimes it looks like they want to delete people that made history in the clubs. I think this shows that Chelsea is really a big club because big clubs are also about principles.”
“Chelsea belongs to my history, I belong to Chelsea history.”#UCL pic.twitter.com/LUm7zAzx9b
— UEFA Champions League (@ChampionsLeague) September 29, 2025
The game is of importance to current Chelsea manager Enzo Maresca who will be eager to get a result after losing their Champions League opener away at Bayern Munich and also lost back-to-back Premier League games against Chelsea and Brighton & Hove Albion.
