Mourinho rues red card, says Benfica-Sporting clash was tough | OneFootball

José Mourinho explained that he is satisfied with the attitude shown by the Benfica team. The coach of the "encarnados" saw his team draw with Sporting, at the Estádio da Luz, in a match of the 13th round of the Liga Portugal Betclic, and at the end of the game, he spoke to the BTV microphones in the usual flash interview.

The "encarnados" coach was first questioned about the team's commitment, and he was straightforward in his response: "I am satisfied. In games like these, it's knockout... you go in and concede a goal, it's difficult to recover. The team managed to do just that".

As a reminder, Benfica hosted Sporting at the Estádio da Luz this Friday, December 5th. The "lions" started strong and took the lead through Pedro Gonçalves, but the "eagles" reacted, equalized, and dominated the rest of the match.

Very close to the end of the match, Gianluca Prestianni committed a foul on Geny Catamo to stop a Sporting counter-attack. The VAR intervened in the play - António Nobre changed the yellow card he initially showed to a red card. José Mourinho did not hide that this moment also impacted the game.

"We faced situations where Dedic was struggling but there was no alternative. Enzo too, but Manu was not fit, and I only put him in when I was forced to. The youngster's expulsion ended up killing the strategy we had prepared to try and attack the space in the last minutes", concluded the Benfica coach.

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