Rui Borges jibes at Francesco Farioli: “Forgot the balls and towels” | OneFootball

There are taunts that backfire on the one making them. Rui Borges left the Dragão taking shots at Francesco Farioli, saying the Italian “must have forgotten about the balls and the towels.” The joke might have been funny coming from any other bench. Coming from the coach of the team whose goalkeeper spent the night glued to the turf, dragging out restarts and turning every foul in midfield into a ritual of prolonged treatment, it is simply surreal.

As for the match, the Sporting coach sold his own version of reality: “A very good first half on the ball. We almost always beat FC Porto’s press, they only had one dangerous chance in the 47th minute.” Curious accounting. Reducing Porto’s first half hour to “one dangerous chance” requires a generosity of interpretation that can only be explained by the color of the shirt. Anyone who watched the match saw something else: an FC Porto side pushing Sporting back, forcing Rui Silva into work, and an opponent taking refuge in stoppages every time the ball came near the penalty area. And they saw a referee preventing FC Porto from scoring, forgiving Sporting a sending-off and a penalty.

Rui Borges continued in the same ridiculous vein: “In the second half the fatigue set in a little, and it’s impossible for it not to. Because of the recent matches, the injuries, traumatic things we don’t control.” The martyr narrative is becoming a trademark. FC Porto’s schedule, meanwhile, must have been made up of holidays and birthday parties, one assumes. It is worth remembering that the dragons also played in European competitions, also had injuries, also piled up minutes. The difference is that they do not turn it into a press conference every week.

As for Farioli, the “balls and towels” joke deserves a fitting reply. If there is one bench that should avoid that subject, it is Sporting’s. It was the ball boys delivering the ball with suspicious promptness to the Sporting goalkeeper whenever it suited them to waste time. It was the players in green and white going to ground at the slightest touch. It was Rui Silva turning every restart into a little piece of theatre. Talking about balls and towels after that is practically admitting the issue was at the heart of the strategy.

One certainty remains: whoever needs to provoke opponents at the end of a tie decided by fine margins knows perfectly well they did not win through football. They won through the clock. And the clock always remembers everything, including the balls and the towels.

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