Porto the real test for Chelsea

LISBON - CHELSEA'S recent revival faces its first real test today, when the English champions take on their Portuguese counterparts, FC Porto, in the Champions League.

The English club's manager, Jose Mourinho, has likened the match to a final.

He said: 'This week, we have two finals. Porto is like a final, and the one against Arsenal is really a final.'

Chelsea play Arsenal in the League Cup final on Sunday.

But, before that, Mourinho returns to the club he guided to the 2003 Uefa Cup and 2004 Champions League triumphs.

He brings with him a squad that has put together a run of six successive wins without conceding a goal since they were beaten 0-2 by Liverpool at Anfield at the end of last month.

On the back of those performances, the manager has done his best to foster a sense that his men have gone through their sticky patch and emerged unscathed.

It is a belief which, he claimed, led him to rest Claude Makelele and Ricardo Carvalho for last Saturday's FA Cup tie with Norwich.

'Because the team are in a good moment, winning matches, confidence back, I thought I could give some players a rest,' he nonchalantly explained, after watching his side win 4-0.

Closer scrutiny of the winning sequence, however, suggests that the 'business as usual' rhetoric, if not total bluster, could yet prove to be premature.

Three of the six victories were recorded against lower- league opposition - Nottingham Forest and Norwich in the FA Cup and Wycombe in the League Cup.

Middlesbrough and Blackburn were outclassed in league matches at Stamford Bridge.

However, the scrappy 1-0 win at relegation-threatened Charlton will have been accorded equal significance by the rest of Europe's elite.

Unlike Charlton, Porto are a side in form.

A 4-0 hammering of Naval last Friday allowed them to pull four points clear at the top of the Portuguese top flight.

And, as Mourinho knows only too well, the Estadio do Dragao is an intimidating venue, where English clubs have not prospered in recent seasons.

Manchester United's 1-2 loss there in the second round in 2004 was arguably the key match in Porto's successful campaign that season.

Mourinho himself suffered defeat by the same margin, when he took Chelsea there in the group stages the following season, his first in London.

Arsenal fared only marginally better this season, registering a goalless draw in December to ensure that both sides progressed to the knockout stage.

Mourinho and his former Porto players, Carvalho and Paulo Ferreira, might be hoping that some of the animosity associated with their departure has dissipated.

The manager, however, is resigned to the fact that for a section of the Porto supporters, his decision to move on to a new challenge will never be one they can understand or accept.

'Those people will give me some nice songs like sometimes I have in England,' he said.

'That's part of the job. I know the job I did there, I know the history I did in that club and not even whistles or boos can delete the history.'

Chelsea will be encouraged by the return of Michael Ballack from the thigh injury he suffered on international duty earlier in the month.

Mourinho will have to reshuffle his defence once more, having lost Khalid Boulahrouz for several weeks with a dislocated shoulder.

'The message I want to give to my players is that they have to be more worried about us than we are about them,' he said.

Porto welcome back winger Ricardo Quaresma from a two-match ban.

Coach Jesualdo Ferreira is set to revert to a 4-3-3 formation, with Argentinian strikers Lucho Gonzalez and Lisandro Lopez looking to profit from Quaresma's crossing ability.

AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE

FC Porto v Chelsea
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