Jose Mourinho has recalled his first match in charge of Chelsea against Manchester United in 2004, ahead of the two clubs meeting again on the opening weekend of the 2019/20 season.
The Portuguese arrived into English football to great fanfare having won the Champions League with Porto the season before, and he was handed a huge test against Sir Alex Ferguson's men first up at Stamford Bridge.
Eidur Gudjohnsen scrambled home the game's only goal past Tim Howard just 14 minutes into the game, with Chelsea holding on to secure a priceless 1-0 victory.
And Mourinho has revealed just how they achieved it in a video with The Coaches' Voice .
“It was important to win against a direct rival," he said.
“In the context of 38 matches you cannot lose many points, especially at home against direct rivals if you want to win the title.
“I thought it was very important because there was not a contradiction between our words to the players, our ambitions, and then the result of the match.
“If you say ‘this season is to be champions’ and then the first match you lose 3-0 at home to a direct rival, you give one step back.
“So it was one step forward, there was a big relation between that match and what we tried to give to the team in pre-season which was mental strength, being compact, tactical discipline and then be really ambitious on that approach that sometimes I call the ‘all in approach’.
“You have to put everything in that game, in every minute of the game, every second of the game, it’s all in.
“It’s your qualities, your physical power, it’s your aggression, it’s your emotional control, you have to put everything in.
“That game was one of those matches where we could feel the ‘all in’.
“It’s one of those matches where I felt the game is 90 minutes, but it could be 900 minutes and they wouldn’t score.
"We would always win the match.”
