KEY POINTS:
Jose Mourinho and Luiz Felipe Scolari have a rivalry that has divided Portuguese football for the past five years but this week the former Chelsea manager finally buried the hatchet with his old adversary and gave him his blessing to take over at Stamford Bridge. Mourinho used the platform of his Portuguese newspaper column to say Scolari had to move for one reason above all - the money.
How long the fragile peace holds is debatable, especially as Massimo Moratti, Mourinho's employer as owner of Internazionale, yesterday finally went public in declaring Frank Lampard was the "No 1 objective". At the same time Deco, who is pushing for a move to Chelsea, declared that his agent Jorge Mendes - also Scolari and Mourinho's agent - was in talks with the club.
When Scolari takes over at Chelsea next month, the future of the England international will be among his priorities although the club said it was "relaxed" about Moratti's statement and that Lampard's future is yet to be decided. Scolari will have noticed, however, that Mourinho did refer to his former club as "my Chelsea".
Under a heading of "Scolari at Chelsea", Mourinho asked: "Who can criticise the Portuguese national coach?" He added: "The journalists faced with such a proposal [more money] wouldn't say 'I love my newspaper a lot and I'm not interested in change even if you pay me three times as much. Even if professionally it is a better challenge'. Company directors approached by a bigger company? They would say 'I'm not leaving because I love it a lot here?' Who can criticise Scolari's decision?"
Mourinho also said the timing of the announcement was unavoidable, that a "super club like Chelsea" could not keep such an appointment quiet for so long and Scolari's employers at the Portuguese football federation (FPF) could not be expected to keep it a secret either.
"I think that Scolari has acted in the right way. He will be Chelsea manager from the day that European Championship are over for Portugal.
"I don't believe he is studying English when he is supposed to be watching videos and analysing Germany."
- INDEPENDENT