The Portuguese coach is not too confident in the third place conquered by his team with the victory in Turin: “If they remove the penalty, we’d be fourth”. A dig at Lazio too: “We are our biggest opponent. With a limited squad we don’t get kicked out of any competition and we don’t lose matches to have a better chance of winning others”
TURIN-ROME 0-1
Jose Mourinho he keeps his feet on the ground, for reasons on the pitch and beyond, despite Roma’s victory in Turin. In the post-game to the microphones of Dazn, the Giallorossi coach seemed skeptical about his team’s momentary third place: “Are you sure Juve doesn’t have 59 points? So we’d be fourth, we’re in Italy…”, he joked with a smile.
“We want to win everywhere”
The Portuguese claimed success with the slightest gap: “The goal of football is to score one more goal than your opponent, to win by trying to exploit your qualities and hiding your problems.” Mourinho also extolled his team’s mentality, not failing to reserve a veiled dig at Lazio: “The opponent that worries me the most? Ourselves, because we think like a great team, we don’t get kicked out of any competition, we don’t lose a match to have more chances in the next one. The squad has limits, maybe now we also lost Solbakken all season after Karsdorsp, we have three games a week again, I can’t say which is more important between Udinese and Feyenoord.”
The choice to play without a center forward
Going into the tactical analysis, Mourinho explained the will of don’t let a starting center forward start: “There was a need for quick people in one-on-one situations, Juric’s teams often put the opposing center forward in the pocket, we had to find the depth to attack with Dybala coming out. At the same time I lacked a bit of personality with Ibanez, Pellegrini and Matic on the bench and players who hadn’t seen the field so far”. Also a comment on young whistle Colombo: “Young referee with equal criteria on both sides, I really liked him, he let us play a lot”. More cryptic about the reasons for the failure to use Belotti: “I explained to him why he didn’t play, the important thing is his answer and that we won, these things remain between us. Lazio-Juve? We’ll be on the plane, I won’t watch it”.