Chelsea FC manager Jose Mourinho has said he would like to coach Portugal before he retires from football.

The 2006 World Cup semi-finalists Portugal are being currently coached by Brazilian Luis Felipe Scolari.

Big Phil's contract will end after the European Championship 2008 to be hosted by Austria and Switzerland.

In an interview with Portuguese sports daily O Jogo on Monday, the straight-talking Portuguese, who is tied with the Premiership champions till 2010, has also laughed off the pattern adopted by the sport’s governing body which pits groups of seven to eight national teams in an exhausting qualifying competition.

“National teams are required to play far too many matches. There are too many matches with minor teams and because of this when there are serious matches players are at risk of not being at the level that people expect,” he explained.

“It is too much to have groups of seven to eight teams that play 14, 15, 16 matches to qualify, which serve mostly to injure players,” he added.

The 43-year-old Mourinho, who has guided the Blues to two successive Premiership titles after taking FC Porto to the Champions League triumph, of the opinion that qualifying groups should instead consist of just three or four national teams matched by their ability.

The most sensible thing would then be that “the best would play against the best and the worst against the worst. Instead of Portugal playing against Kazakhstan and England against San Marino, let Kazakhstan and San Marino play against Andorra,” he said.

Bookmark/Search this post with:

delicious | digg | google | yahoo | technorati