It is not only the coincidence of eight meetings in 14 months that has forced Rafael Benítez and José Mourinho to the forefront of English football. Both are young, ambitious coaches from the new technocratic school who have forged hard-to-beat, if hard-to-love, teams in their own uncompromising image.
Behind the public platitudes, the mutual distrust between Mourinho and Benítez, whose characters are as different as their footballing ideas are similar, is clear and the animosity has spread to their players.
As an inconsequential match on Tuesday night threatened to spiral out of control, with a series of vicious challenges on the pitch spilling over into claim and counter-claim off it, it was impossible to avoid the conclusion that these teams simply do not like each other. Why else would Jamie Carragher jeer Frank Lampard as his England team-mate prepared to take a penalty at Anfield in October? Other details of their encounters may have been forgotten, but the ill-feeling remains.
Michael Essien and Mohamed Sissoko, African warriors both, were the central figures in the latest episode of this long-running serial, although there were plenty of confrontations elsewhere. Mourinho is still bitter about Luis García’s “ghost” goal, which denied him a second successive Champions League final appearance last May, while even John Terry is struggling to purge the image from his mind of Steven Gerrard lifting the trophy. The merest suggestion that Liverpool have worked out how to play against Chelsea was enough to make their captain bridle, pointing to the Barclays Premiership table as his defence.
“I don’t want to go back into what happened last season,” Terry said, but he could not help himself. “They won it last season and sometimes it’s just not meant to be. But it is hard to take. Even (now) the thought of Liverpool winning the trophy is still in the back of our minds. I suppose it will be for the rest of my career. I know we’re a better team than them. The Premier League says it all.”
Carragher’s insistence that the champions are a long-ball team rankles with Chelsea, with Terry blaming Liverpool for the fact that only one goal has been scored in their four Champions League meetings. Or no goals, if you listen to Mourinho. The irony being, of course, that the stalemates result from their similarities, with both managers focusing on defence and playing only one striker.
“Liverpool haven’t got under our skins exactly, but that’s a couple of times now they’ve done this to us,” Terry said. “They are a bit defensive. Carragher and (Sami) Hyypia have defended very well and they’ve played very deep. They came for the point and got what they wanted.
“But with the side we’ve got, we should be able to break them down. They did the same thing at their place, but in the league game up there we scored an early goal and they had to come out after that. That’s the key to playing them.”
With United and Arsenal struggling, Liverpool look best placed to challenge Chelsea for the foreseeable future, at least in the ever-blinking eyes of Dietmar Hamann. “It will be good for the league if there’s one team that can challenge Chelsea over the next few years and it’s us or Manchester United,” the Germany midfield player said. “Hopefully it can be Liverpool and we’re going about it the right way. We’ve improved from last season and are going in the right direction. We’re on a good run at the moment but need to keep it going in the league.”