Benfica boss admits meeting Porto chief, says the story stays the same | OneFootball

José Mourinho confessed that he met André Villas-Boas in the tunnel of the Estádio do Dragão after the final whistle of Porto - Benfica, a match that ended in a goalless draw. The Benfica coach spoke with journalists at the press conference and revealed that the two even exchanged a hug.

"This wasn’t a game for man-marking. It was for zonal marking. If you defend man-to-man, you take more risks, with duels and cards. This way, with two, we cover three, and positionally we controlled the game. They had a great chance with Rodrigo’s shot. If there had been someone else in goal instead of Trubin, it would have been the same because Trubin practically didn’t touch the ball," José Mourinho began, in reference to the classic.

The Benfica coach continued, speaking about his reception at the Estádio do Dragão: "History doesn’t change. My gratitude to Porto remains the same. I don’t know if their gratitude towards me has changed or not, but I had a calm match, focused on my work, focused on trying to help my team."

"And I had already played here with Chelsea, I can’t say that during the match I had any special feeling. What the president said before the game – ‘he should be received as Benfica’s coach’ – was normal. At the end of the match I met him in the corridor, we hugged, and life goes on," José Mourinho revealed next.

He finished with a final analysis of the match: "Looking at it objectively, when you go to Marquês, you don’t remember any of this, and our goal is to go to Marquês. I won’t deny that, under normal conditions, with equal points, we would have had a different approach. Porto never fell apart either. It wasn’t just pragmatic Mourinho, Francesco was too. If you analyze it from the perspective of pragmatism versus pragmatism, I agree. If you say one team tried to win and the other didn’t, then I don’t agree."

This article was translated into English by Artificial Intelligence. You can read the original version in 🇵🇹 here.