Gary Lineker on Benfica icon's silence: I don't know what I said | OneFootball

Gary Lineker revealed a bizarre episode involving José Mourinho, Benfica’s current coach, which has remained unexplained for more than a decade. The former England international says that, despite having had a close relationship in the past, the Portuguese manager simply stopped speaking to him for no apparent reason.

"He has his ups and downs. I know that from personal experience. José is fascinating. He used to text me all the time... 'I love what you say on Match of the Day.' I had that kind of relationship with him. Then it stopped. It just stopped. That was it. To this day I don’t know what I said to annoy him", he revealed in comments on the "Netflix Sports Club" podcast.

Lineker also recalled a curious episode related to the presentation of an award during Mourinho’s spell at Chelsea, which highlighted the distance between them. "GQ asked me to present him with the sportsman of the year award when he was at Chelsea. I said: 'Of course.' This was after about six months of silence. The day before, I got a phone call saying: 'José would prefer someone not connected to football to present the award'. I said: 'I’m going anyway,'" he added.

Despite the awkwardness, the former striker - who criticised the manager over the Prestianni case - decided to confront Mourinho directly at the event, but got no clarification. "I went up to him and asked: 'Do we have a problem?'. He replied: 'No'. I pressed him: 'Are you sure?'. And he said: 'No'. To this day, I still don’t know. Maybe it was a bad joke or something like that", he said.

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