Bayern Munich manager Vincent Kompany was asked his opinion on the big football controversy of the week: the alleged racist insults towards Real Madrid player Vinícius Jr. by Benfica player Gianluca Prestianni during a Champions League match on Tuesday. While Benfica and the player have denied the insult, Kompany sides with the Brazilian, saying that Vini's reaction "cannot be faked".
"You can see it was an emotional reaction. Mbappé normally always stays diplomatic, but he was very clear about what he saw and heard. Then there's the Benfica player who was hiding what he was saying in his shirt. In the stadium you can see there were people doing monkey signs, it's in the video", Kompany said.
However, the Belgian manager was specially critical with José Mourinho, Benfica manager, who has been under fire by his comments made after the match: he didn't defend Prestianni (tried to be "independent" in his opinion of the matter) but accused Vinícius of provoking with his goal celebration. Many pundits, including Thierry Henry, have defended Vinícius' right of celebrating however he likes (even at the cost of a yellow card), and Kompany agrees: "For me, what happened after the game is even worse. José Mourinho basically attacked Vinicius Jr.'s character by discrediting the type of celebration he did. That was a huge mistake in terms of leadership and something we should not accept".
For Kompany, perhaps Mourinho's biggest mistake was mentioning Eusébio in his argument that Benfica "isn't a racist club". "He said Benfica cannot be racist because their best ever player was Eusébio. Do you know what black players had to go through in the 60s? Was he there to travel with Eusebio for every away game and see what he went through?"
But Mourinho wasn't left alone in the use of the figure of Eusébio, who died in 2014, as a defence: Benfica itself used him in the statement to defend Prestianni.
"I've never heard someone say something bad about José. All his players love him. I know deep down he's a good person. I don't need to judge him on that. But I also know what I've heard. I understand what he's done, but he made a mistake. Hopefully it won't happen again in the future, and we can move on together", Kompany added.
Bayern Munich sit six points clear in the Bundesliga table, with 57 points, followed by Borussia Dortmund's 51 points, but with nearly twice as many goals scored than Borussia. Bayern faces Eintracht Frankfurt tomorrow at 15:30 CET, 14:30 GMT.