MOURINHO: “We dominated, but football punishes for missed goals”

Benfica’s coach José Mourinho After the defeat against Juventus (2:0), he emphasized that the team does not intend to give up, even if the chances of qualifying for the play-offs are very slim.

– Is it almost impossible for Benfica to continue playing in the Champions League?

– “Practically” does not mean “impossible” even if it is practically impossible. But even if it’s really impossible, our feeling is that no matter what the goals are, when Benfica plays, you have to give everything you’ve got.

You have to bear the responsibility of being Benfica and do your best. So it doesn’t make much difference whether it is possible or not in practice. We know it’s Real Madrid, we know we’re Benfica now with restrictions, but we’re going all the way like today. We just need to score goals.

Playing the way we play, creating opportunities the way we create, dominating the way we dominate, having the courage we have… We have to score goals and win. When you cannot score a goal, especially when you play against teams with players of that quality, you open the door to conceding a goal.

I sat on the bench with the nose of a man who had played 1,250 games on the bench and told my colleagues: “In this scenario, if we don’t score, we will eventually lose.”

I saw some really beautiful things. We reached the second phase of the attack with quality, but it is very difficult to score in the last 20 meters.

It was a good match for Benfica, I have no doubt that I will say this after the defeat, but you need to score to win.

– Did everything go wrong for Benfica today?

– There may be different analyzes than mine, but I try to be honest in my assessment. Benfica played a great game, but in football you have to score goals.

There are teams that score and win without creating much; This has happened to me many times in my career. We tried to find a solution and formed a team with a different quality, again taking into account serious injuries.

A team that came to Porto and won, came to Vila do Conde and won, came to Turin and won… but it has to hit its opponent’s goal. But we didn’t do that. It’s not enough to just play well, you also have to go there and score goals.