Jose Mourinho is furious at Spain manager Vicente del Bosque after believing Diego Costa's hamstring problem was exacerbated on international duty.
Costa is out of tonight's Champions League Group G tie with Maribor with an injury that has plagued him persistently this season. Instead of resting, the £32m signing from Atletico Madrid played almost every minute of the Euro 2016 qualifying matches against Slovakia and Luxembourg this month and Mourinho does not know if his top-scorer will be fit for Sunday's match at Manchester United.
"It's the same problem that he's having, but now an injury, not an 'almost injury'," Mourinho said. "Let's see what happens for next weekend [at Old Trafford], but next weekend is not important. Important is tomorrow and he cannot play."
Costa, scorer of nine goals in seven Premier League games, missed Saturday's win at Crystal Palace, and Chelsea have an unchanged squad for their first fixture with the Slovenian side. Nigeria midfielder John Obi Mikel is again absent with a foot injury, while Brazil's Ramires and World Cup winning Germany forward Andre Schuerrle are also out despite training yesterday.
But it is the situation regarding Costa which appears to irk most. "It hurts," said Mourinho, who has not spoken to Del Bosque about Costa. You are not happy when you give players in good conditions and you receive the players in bad conditions. I had managers with a very open communication, some others they simply don't care. Year after year after year, I don't have one single SMS or one single phone call."
The only national team manager Mourinho has spoken to this season regarding his players was England's Roy Hodgson. "In this moment, since the beginning of the season, I think from all the national teams, I think one phone call from Roy," he said.
"It was the only one from all the national teams that had personal, direct contact with me."
Mourinho declined to reveal details of the conversation with Hodgson, but defender Gary Cahill was carrying an ankle knock at the start of September prior to England's match with Switzerland. Mourinho invited Gary Neville, the England assistant coach who last week interviewed him in his role as a newspaper columnist, to Chelsea's Surrey training ground.
The Portuguese also revealed how then Croatia coach Igor Stimac called him three times a week about midfielder Luka Modric when the pair were at Real Madrid in an example of good communication.
In a thinly-veiled attack on Del Bosque, Mourinho added: "I don't say that communication is compulsory for the players to be back in good conditions. I'm not saying that. For example, I didn't speak with [Brazil manager] Dunga and Oscar, Filipe [Luis] and Willian came back in perfect conditions."
He added, though, that he would not try to exert pressure on his players to pull out of internationals. "I'm not the kind of guy to tell the players not to go. I don't tell the players to pretend they have problems," he said.
"The players should be proud to play for the national teams and Chelsea is proud that our players are selected for their national teams."
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