Jose Mourinho is rarely lacking in confidence and the Chelsea boss is firm in his belief that his side can overturn a two-goal deficit in Tuesday night’s Uefa Champions League quarter-final second leg with Paris Saint-Germain.
If Chelsea are to reach a seventh semi-final in 11 years, Mourinho's men must respond from the 3-1 first-leg loss at Parc des Princes, when his side were "dangerous to ourselves".
“I think we are going to win, really,” Mourinho said. “In the end of the two legs, I think we are going to score more goals than them.
“In this moment it’s 3-1, I think in the end it can be 4-3 or 5-4. If I don’t think that way I don’t go. And I go and I’m happy to go.
“I believe and my players believe. That’s the most important thing.”
Mourinho could be prepared to gamble on the fitness of Samuel Eto’o, the striker who has missed the last three games with a hamstring injury.
Eto’o has netted all 11 of his goals this season at Stamford Bridge and is trusted by Mourinho to rise to the occasion, perhaps in contrast to Fernando Torres, who was omitted from a strikerless starting XI in Paris last Wednesday.
“Fit, fit, I don’t think he is. But play, maybe,” the Chelsea boss said of Eto’o, a Champions League winner with Barcelona and Mourinho’s Inter Milan.
PSG have lost just once by two clear goals in their last 110 fixtures, while only two sides in Champions League history have overturned two-goal deficits, with Chelsea involved in both contests.
In 2000, Barcelona advanced at Chelsea’s expense, but in 2012 Chelsea overcame Napoli after extra-time in the last 16, en route to winning the European Cup.
Chelsea, who beat Stoke on Saturday after three losses in the previous five games, must replicate the Napoli result against PSG.
Reminders of the successful 2012 campaign are everywhere.
PSG forwards Edinson Cavani and Ezequiel Lavezzi were in the Napoli side beaten by the Blues, while Tuesday’s referee Pedro Proenca was also the man in the middle against Bayern in the Munich final.
There are numerous comparisons between PSG and Chelsea after the lavish spending of foreign owners.
PSG are two years into a project which began at Chelsea when Roman Abramovich took ownership in June 2004.
The Ligue 1 club, who are without talismanic forward Zlatan Ibrahimovic (thigh), are determined to savour success in the competition sooner rather than later.
PSG manager Laurent Blanc said: “There is real ambition within this club to win the Champions League as quickly as possible.
“This can often take time. We’ve seen examples of that in England, with Chelsea, who despite investing an enormous amount of money, still took a long time to win the trophy.”
However, the visitors will not be intimidated at Stamford Bridge.
Blanc added: “We’ve not come here to suffer, we’ve not come here to have Chelsea just dictate the game to us and to dominate us.
“We know that the best approach to take is to have the ball and to create chances.
“It would be wonderful to be able to qualify by putting this philosophy into action.”
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Started: established in 2016 and launched in July 2017
Based: Singapore, with offices in the UAE, Malaysia, Hong Kong, Thailand
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Initial investment: $500,000 in seed round 1 in 2016; $2.2m in seed round 2 in 2017; $5m in series A round in 2018; $12m in series B round in 2019; $16m in series C round in 2020 and $25m in series D round in 2021
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Duterte Harry: Fire and Fury in the Philippines
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The smuggler
Eldarir had arrived at JFK in January 2020 with three suitcases, containing goods he valued at $300, when he was directed to a search area.
Officers found 41 gold artefacts among the bags, including amulets from a funerary set which prepared the deceased for the afterlife.
Also found was a cartouche of a Ptolemaic king on a relief that was originally part of a royal building or temple.
The largest single group of items found in Eldarir’s cases were 400 shabtis, or figurines.
Khouli conviction
Khouli smuggled items into the US by making false declarations to customs about the country of origin and value of the items.
According to Immigration and Customs Enforcement, he provided “false provenances which stated that [two] Egyptian antiquities were part of a collection assembled by Khouli's father in Israel in the 1960s” when in fact “Khouli acquired the Egyptian antiquities from other dealers”.
He was sentenced to one year of probation, six months of home confinement and 200 hours of community service in 2012 after admitting buying and smuggling Egyptian antiquities, including coffins, funerary boats and limestone figures.
For sale
A number of other items said to come from the collection of Ezeldeen Taha Eldarir are currently or recently for sale.
Their provenance is described in near identical terms as the British Museum shabti: bought from Salahaddin Sirmali, "authenticated and appraised" by Hossen Rashed, then imported to the US in 1948.
- An Egyptian Mummy mask dating from 700BC-30BC, is on offer for £11,807 ($15,275) online by a seller in Mexico
- A coffin lid dating back to 664BC-332BC was offered for sale by a Colorado-based art dealer, with a starting price of $65,000
- A shabti that was on sale through a Chicago-based coin dealer, dating from 1567BC-1085BC, is up for $1,950
MATCH INFO
Euro 2020 qualifier
Ukraine 2 (Yaremchuk 06', Yarmolenko 27')
Portugal 1 (Ronaldo 72' pen)
Washmen Profile
Date Started: May 2015
Founders: Rami Shaar and Jad Halaoui
Based: Dubai, UAE
Sector: Laundry
Employees: 170
Funding: about $8m
Funders: Addventure, B&Y Partners, Clara Ventures, Cedar Mundi Partners, Henkel Ventures
Six pitfalls to avoid when trading company stocks
Following fashion
Investing is cyclical, buying last year's winners often means holding this year's losers.
Losing your balance
You end up with too much exposure to an individual company or sector that has taken your fancy.
Being over active
If you chop and change your portfolio too often, dealing charges will eat up your gains.
Running your losers
Investors hate admitting mistakes and hold onto bad stocks hoping they will come good.
Selling in a panic
If you sell up when the market drops, you have locked yourself out of the recovery.
Timing the market
Even the best investor in the world cannot consistently call market movements.
