It took Nemanja Matic only a minute from receiving the call from his agent explaining that
Jose Mourinho wanted to bring him to Chelsea in January 2014 to making the decision to move.
The
Serbian could have taken umbrage when Chelsea considered him a mere
makeweight — valued at around £5million — in the deal that saw David
Luiz travel in the other direction from Benfica three years previously,
but he was piqued by the Portuguese manager.
This
time, however, it might take a while longer to make up his mind to
rejoin his former manager at Manchester United in a £40m transfer.
Mourinho was the driving force in bringing
Matic to Stamford Bridge, forcing Chelsea to ignore critics who
described re-signing the player for £21million after letting him leave
for so little as farcical. And he built Matic into a pivotal player in
their Premier League and League Cup-winning campaign, during which he
became established as one of the world's leading holding midfielders.
'When
I came here Mourinho told me he believed in my quality and he gave me
confidence to play my game,' Matic told FourFourTwo magazine, a few
months into his time under his new manager. 'Of course, I can improve
some things and I want to improve, to learn.
'Everybody
knows he's a great, great manager, but I can say from having worked
with him for these few months that he is also a good man. When it is
time for a joke, he will joke, but when we have to do our job he is
always very serious.'
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