Mourinho on skipping Benfica dressing room: I don’t make up stories | OneFootball

José Mourinho analyzed Benfica's victory over Nacional (2-1), a match from the 12th round of the Liga Betclic held this Saturday, November 29, at the Estádio da Madeira. Asked about why he went to meet the players at the end of the game, contrary to what he usually does, the coach explained why he didn't go directly to the locker rooms.

"You already know me, I don't give excuses, I don't make up stories. Today, if we had lost this game, I would congratulate my players. The only thing they didn't do, if we had lost 1-0, was score a goal. They did everything right. On a difficult field, against a tough opponent, with a style of play that I won't comment on, because I have nothing to say about the game my opponents play, it was difficult losing 1-0 completely against the justice of the game, which is a hard blow... I took a risk, but they accepted the risk," the coach began by saying, referring to the role of Georgiy Sudakov.

Sudakov starts on the left, then moves to the number 10 position, and then in the last 15 minutes, when Schjelderup comes in, he moves to the number 8 position. Just to give an example of the level of commitment from the players. Today, if I lose the game, it would obviously be a big frustration."

The coach also took a jab at the 'commentators': "I don't even want to imagine what all those who comment on football in Portugal would say. I don't even want to imagine what they would say if we lost the game. But for me, what matters is what I see, what I feel, and what I saw, what I felt, was a good team playing well, with its limitations, because we have limitations. When we play against a team with a very low block, with big players, with good defenders in the area game, sometimes we lack a reference there, with a different profile from what we have. But we went looking for solutions, we spread wide, we put people coming from the back, we put technical people to find small spaces within a super-closed defense, and the players deserved it. That's why I celebrated so much, because I wanted to immediately give them that recognition, because the victory is theirs. We coaches sometimes make substitutions that work, that don't work, but it's them who make it work or not, it's them who accept or not the risk. This thing about coaches who take a lot of risks is all theory, because in practice, out there, it's them who have to accept both a style of play and another style of play. And just as the Nacional players fought until the end for their style of play, we went with our style until the end, and in my opinion, we deserved to win.

José Mourinho explained that this is the attitude he wants from now on: "Playing better, playing worse, having more talent, having less talent, having more players available or fewer players available, Benfica has to go until the end. Benfica today, if it loses the game, it is a tremendous injustice. But regardless of any kind of negative reaction that could come from the members, the fans, obviously from the press it would be the Lisbon earthquake once again, but they were Benfica... And also they took the risk, had the courage not to have a problem of, 'okay, if we lose 2-0 we lose 2-0, but 1-0 and demoralized and passive, no'. The team took that risk very well. I am very happy, obviously, with the victory, because it is points that we feed on, but I also really like being happy with the way the team played. I am happy. I think the players also deserved this. And Ajax away, and traveling only the next day, and having a day to train and little, and traveling again to Madeira, and having a difficult game like this, on a field that is difficult for everyone, in a game that became even more difficult, due to not having scored a goal... Because there is also something that seemed, or could seem, the negativity that has accompanied Benfica. Before Nacional's goal, Barreiro misses an open goal. And Nacional, which doesn't make a single shot on goal, goes there and scores. This, normally, in the Benfica I came to find, would be the final blow in the game. And for them, it wasn't. Barreiro misses the goal, we make the mistake there, Nacional scores the goal, there are 20 minutes left, which we knew wouldn't be 20, we knew it would be 7 or 8, because of the way the game was being managed that was what would happen. But they went, and went, and went. And when we scored the equalizing goal, I think the second goal was going to appear, because the wave was already big," he concluded.

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