Many even suppose that it would be his cue to depart the club. "Not correct," he retorted. "I made one mistake at Porto. I left when I was European champion [in 2004]. I could have won the Inter-Continental Cup, but I didn't because I left." He seemed semi-serious in his regret that he allowed a successor to enjoy that honour.

At some level, Mourinho was probably in earnest about his desire to lift a competition, in its expanded form, that is now to be called the Fifa Club World Cup. The ambition is counterbalanced by a view of the obstacles in his immediate path. He was not massaging egos on the continent when speaking of the "minimum of 10" sides with a realistic prospect of prevailing in this season's Champions League.

"They have the same potential as we have and the same ambitions," the manager said, talking as if he was outing opponents he envies for avoiding the scrutiny under which Chelsea fall.

The 10 he listed were: Arsenal, Liverpool, Manchester United, Bayern Munich, Barcelona, Real Madrid, Valencia, Lyon, Milan and, specifically, Internazionale. "In terms of numbers and quality I think [Inter] have the best squad in the world at the moment," Mourinho judged. "We have a squad of 19 and some of them are young kids. They have a squad not for the future but for today." With Luis Figo, Zlatan Ibrahimovic, Adriano, Patrick Vieira, Hernan Crespo and Javier Zanetti on the books, the assertion is not whimsical.

However, the Chelsea group is the one that he has preferred to assemble when he could, instead, have concentrated entirely on established names, but Mourinho has always had a suspicion of galácticos. After the summer outlay, he agrees that his club should be "stronger" and must be "a contender" for the Champions League.

Before praising Andriy Shevchenko and predicting more than one goal in Group A from his sole galactico, it was typical of Mourinho to extol the Ukrainian first of all as "a team player".

Mourinho meant what he said, though, when saying that the competition is getting stiffer in the Premiership and the Champions League. His sense of difficulties is acute when the manager find himself in the same group as the holders, just as he did in his first two years in London. Then it was Porto and Liverpool; now it is Barcelona, who knocked Chelsea out of the competition last season.

While Levski Sofia ought not to hold many terrors, Chelsea's form has been scratchy. Mourinho complains that he has been unable to work on the new partnership of Michael Ballack and Frank Lampard because international commitments have kept them from the training ground.

The marginally misfiring nature of Chelsea's displays has been typified by lapses in Lampard's form.

His failure with a penalty in Saturday's win over Charlton was his third miss in four attempts from the spot for club and country. Mourinho wants him to keep taking them but gave the midfielder the chance to opt out if he wishes by saying that the duty could go to Shevchenko or Ballack if the players decide that in the course of a game.

Mourinho suggests that Bremen are the best of the tier of third seeds in the group phase, despite the fact that they were knocked out of the German Cup by the third division side Pirmasens.

There is more than that to concern the coach Thomas Schaaf. While Joe Cole is back training after a knee problem and only Arjen Robben is ruled out of Chelsea's squad, injury deprives Bremen of the centre-half Per Mertesacker and their goalkeeper Tim Wiese, who has bronchitis, must be replaced by the 37-year-old Andreas Reinke.

A thigh strain makes Miroslav Klose a doubt, even though the top scorer at the World Cup is determined to take part.