UEFA president Lennart Johansson has issued a controlled warning to both Chelsea and Barcelona as the two clubs get ready to battle it out in the second leg of their Champion’s League clash in Spain.

After a war of words erupted following Barcelona’s victory in the first leg and the controversy surrounding Asier Del Horno’s sending off and Lionel Messi’s supposed diving, UEFA have told the clubs that they are being observed and that they hope to see the match go off in good spirits.

Barcelona coach Frank Rijkaard has already been quoted as saying he expects the home fans to applaud their visitors and show how sporting a football crowd they can be although after Jose Mourinho’s spit laden arrival yesterday it’s unlikely that the Dutch coach’s words will have the calming effect he’s hoping for.

Be assured though that if Chelsea do fail to overturn their deficit and Barcelona do go through then Mourinho will have an instant “reason” to explain why they have been beaten. For a man who is in charge of the most expensive football squad in history, he is without doubt the most unsporting manager in European football and usually displays the spin and deflection techniques of a Tony Blair-esque politician when things either don’t go his way or even when they do.

Whether Jose has to resort to blaming the referee or some other luckless bystander after this game remains to be seen. Lennart Johansson is watching however but, with the usual toothless attitude of UEFA still in place, is in no position to threaten either of these big money clubs and would be better in future keeping his thinly veiled threats to himself until he manages to instill some form of worthwhile disciplinary measures into his organisation.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, March 7th, 2006 at 5:21 pm and is filed under Chelsea. You can subscribe via RSS 2.0 feed to this post's comments. Both comments and pings are currently closed.