Mourinho says Benfica should have had a penalty against Nacional | OneFootball

José Mourinho, coach of Benfica, did not hide his satisfaction in the press conference with the victory over Nacional in Madeira (2-1), but especially with the performance and reaction to adversities. Nevertheless, the coach mentions a penalty that was not awarded on Leandro Barreiro.

"We did not allow Nacional to create any dangerous situations. We always played in the opponent's half, the team was very organized. When we lost the ball, the team was very organized in recovering and not allowing Nacional any kind of counter-attack. I think we should have been leading in the first half. In the second half, in my opinion, we started as well as in the first," he began by saying, before talking about the refereeing.

"It's hard to talk about the referee, but there's a penalty on Barreiro in the 50th minute. During the game, I didn't notice it, I had doubts. But after watching, at the end of the game, it's a clear penalty on Barreiro, but we let it go. And then, completely against the flow of the game, it's our mistake."

The coach notes that Nacional's goal came from a mistake by the red team: "In the only mistake we made in the defensive zone, Nacional scored. And then we were on the brink of risk and the team had an extraordinary response. They maintained calmness but started to accelerate, started to intensify. Then they began to face a team already fatigued."

José Mourinho praised the players who came on during the match: "And our players who came on, the three who came on, Prestianni, Ivanovic, and Schjelderup, entered well, gave a different pace to the game. And then there's that thing, when you win in the last minutes there's always that drama, but I think Benfica's performance, overall, was very well achieved. In Guimarães, we had a very good second half, but here we had a good game throughout the 90 minutes. It's obviously a difficult victory, but it's a very, very, very deserved victory," he concluded.

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