Jose Mourinho remained extremely positive after watching the Blues lose 3-1 against his former club Real Madrid in the Guinness International Champions Cup final in Miami.
Marcelo had broken the deadlock for the Spanish side – now under the stewardship of Carlo Ancelotti – but the Blues hit back within two minutes through Ramires, who finished brilliantly after racing clean through.
However, Madrid restored their advantage courtesy of a Cristiano Ronaldo free-kick just after the half-hour mark, and when the Portuguese doubled his tally with a second-half header, we were left with too much to do.
Mourinho, though, was only concerned with the performance of his own team, and felt both Ronaldo goals could have been avoided.
‘He’s a great player and has scored goals all his life. When he scores it’s not big news, when he doesn’t it is, but we made two mistakes for both goals,’ said the Chelsea manager.
‘For the first, we gave away a free-kick in a position where he’s happy to have it and then the second goal, I told the players with every cross he likes to try to get into space because he’s good in the air.
‘For me, it’s perfect we made mistakes so that we have them to work on. As I said last week, we had five victories in pre-season and zero points. Now we have five victories and one defeat, we still have zero points, it’s not a drama.
‘They play in La Liga, we play in the Premier League, if we meet them in the Champions League and lose it’s a different story but a summer tournament is a summer tournament.’
While the result itself was clearly a disappointment, the Blues boss felt there were plenty of positives to take from our participation in the tournament.
‘For Marco van Ginkel to play against Real, even in a friendly, is a fantastic experience for him,’ he explained.
‘I came here to analyse my team, I’m so happy with the mistakes we made and I’m happy with the good things we did.
‘We came to the US searching for good matches; we had Inter, AC, Real Madrid and Roma. We had the matches we wanted so much and needed so much.’
He went on to explain the reasons for both David Luiz and Juan Mata missing the game.
‘I don’t know if David Luiz and Mata will be back for Roma, they have some small problems, Mata a new one and David Luiz a problem he had in the past, a muscular injury he had before the Champions League final,’ said Mourinho.
‘They are working with the physios in Washington instead of travelling here. We’ll see if they can join the team and play a little against Roma.’