José Mourinho was one of the protagonists of the Benfica vs. Real Madrid match on Tuesday night, ending 1-0 with goal from Vinícius that was followed by alleged racist insults from Benfica player Gianluca Prestianni, insults denied by the player, receiving full support from Benfica, while UEFA reviews the reports.
Right after the match, Mourinho was very critical with Vinícius, who received a yellow card for his goal celebration, in which he danced near a corner flag. Those were his words, picked by Mundo Deportivo: "He scores a goal that only he or Mbappé can score, and he has to celebrate it with his teammates, not mess with the 60,000 people in this stadium. How many stadiums has this happened in? He's an otherworldly player, and I love him, but if you score a goal like this, you have to be carried off on your teammates' shoulders", said the Portuguese player.
Mourinho, who will not sit on the bench next week at the Bernabéu because of his red card, tried to be equidistant regarding the insult incident. "I've spoken to both of them and each one tells me something different. I don't want to say 100% that I only believe Prestianni, but I also can't say that what Vinicius told me is the truth."
However, he explained to the press that he saw red card because of his complains to the referee, who did not show Vinícius a yellow card, but also other players who had a prior warning and, if they were given a yellow card, would not play the following match. "I was sent off because I said something very obvious. The referee had a piece of paper that said Tchouaméni, Huijsen, and Carreras couldn't receive a yellow card. I've spent 1,400 games on the bench and I knew who I could and couldn't book. We know how this works."
Mourinho "prefers to be independent" regarding racist incident
In another set of statements recorded by BBC, the Portuguese manager also defended that Benfica "is not a racist club": "I told Vinicius, when you score a goal like that you just celebrate and walk back. When he was arguing about racism, I told him the biggest person in the history of this club was black", referring to Eusebio.
"This club, the last thing that it is, is racist. If in his mind there was something in relation to that, this is Benfica. They told me different things. But I don't believe in one or another. I want to be an independent."