JOSE MOURINHO left Italian media baffled following Roma’s 2-1 victory over Sassuolo yesterday.
The former Spurs manager launched his own one-man protest at his perceived ill-treatment from the media by refusing to speak Italian after the game.
Despite speaking the language fluently, Mourinho answered questions through an interpreter and responded in Portuguese.
As reported by Football Italia, Mourinho opened his post-match press conference by saying: “I want to thank the club and director Tiago Pinto, who over the last 24 hours gave me the support and therefore the emotional stability that allows me to do my work.
“They showed faith in me. This was a very important, hard-fought and deserved victory, because even when we were a goal down, Roma were still the best team on the pitch.
“I am very happy with the players and all our fans. I want to dedicate this to my fantastic assistant manager, Salvatore Foti, who was not here today but worked very hard to help us achieve the victory.”
Roma trailed in the game for nearly an hour before goals from Paulo Dybala and Rasmus Kristensen secured victory for the Giallorossi.
Ahead of the game, Mourinho had employed mind games against Sassuolo, the referee and VAR.
24 hours before the match he said: “To be honest, I will say that I am worried about the referee. We had this official three times and I don’t think he has the emotional stability to work at this level.
“I am not relaxed about the referee or the VAR, who we were also often unlucky with.
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“[And] I am worried about Berardi, who is a fantastic player, I love him, but he needs to show more respect for his opponents. He mocks other players and gets them booked, so I love and hate him. I don’t like that kind of behaviour on the field and would really dislike seeing that from one of my players.”
Mourinho appeared to suggest his choice of phrase had been used against him when he again referenced “emotional stability” after the game.
He said: “The reason I am speaking Portuguese is that my Italian is not sufficiently polished to express certain concepts. When I talked about emotional stability, I was referring to a quality that in life and in football is necessary to perform at the highest level.”
The dark arts continued into added time at the Mapei stadium, with a member of Mourinho’s coaching staff sent off for refusing to return the match ball to Sassuolo’s players when they attempted to take a quick throw.
On the incident, Mourinho said: “As for the situation that caused some irritation in the Sassuolo staff and fans when we did not give the ball back quickly, I went over to my colleague and simply said that to receive fair play, it is necessary to first give it and there is a player in the Sassuolo squad who is lacking in that area.” As he again put the boot in on Berradi.
The victory away at Sassuolo was Mourinho’s first win at the Mapei stadium as Roma manager and has his side now sitting in the top four.
Roma’s next game takes place at the Stadio Olimpico at home to Fiorentina.
