Real Madrid manager Jose Mourinho spoke to the media after his team\u2019s second successive Champions League comeback, this time against AEK Athens, in a 3-2 win on Wednesday night. He was asked about the way in which these comebacks happen, to which he said: \u201cWe won the first game in the last minute. Of course, I prefer to win more comfortably, but these games won in the final minutes… only we can win them. We\u2019re always in the right place when it matters. And if we do it, it\u2019s because we all feel we can. The players have courage. I\u2019m very lucky to have players of this quality. Very lucky.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cYes, very satisfied, obviously. We played against a very difficult team, who played very well, better than ever. From the first minute, they were very compact, playing direct football. An extraordinary match. They were full of energy, with great intensity. They\u2019re the reason we didn\u2019t play a perfect game. They played a great match. And we, despite the difficulty, were always in the game. We knew how to react in the two critical moments. We showed character, even when we were behind. And in the last minute, with the game wide open and both teams wanting to win… the team with more individual quality won.\u201d<\/p>\n
Mourinho on Jude Bellingham<\/p>\n
\u201cHe\u2019s a unique player; there\u2019s no other midfielder in the world like him, so complete in every aspect. I\u2019m at a loss for words, because for me he\u2019s absolutely extraordinary. And even when he\u2019s not having a good day… he always delivers hard work, leadership, ambition, quality, attacking runs, goals… He\u2019s an extraordinary player. I repeat, I\u2019m very lucky to have this squad.\u201d<\/p>\n
Mourinho on Vinicius Jr and Yan Diomande<\/p>\n
\u201dVinicius hasn\u2019t caused anything [in terms of forcing Diomande on the right wing]. Diomande came to Real Madrid to be able to play on two wings, not just one. It doesn\u2019t matter to him; it makes absolutely no difference which wing he plays on. He had an acceptable game, not an extraordinary one. But the team didn\u2019t have an extraordinary game either. And Vinicius, in that sense, performed very well. Obviously, when making changes in an open game, I have to think about the result, but also a little bit about Valencia. And to take off Diomande and not Vinicius… or Bernardo and not Camavinga, because Tchouameni will play in Valencia… I thought about these things.\u201d<\/p>\n
Mourinho on Kylian Mbappe\u2019s penalty against Racing<\/p>\n
\u201cI think it\u2019s a situation that has no consequence in terms of points. It\u2019s a game where, if we hadn\u2019t had this penalty, we would have won by three, four, or five goals. If we needed to score more, we would have. But the team didn\u2019t want to. It\u2019s not like we\u2019re talking about a game like others in this league where decisions had an influence on the match. We\u2019re talking about a \u2018little penalty,\u2019 I confess, because it\u2019s the kind where the referee calls it thinking it\u2019s a penalty… thinking about the decision. For me, it\u2019s a penalty, but if he calls it against us, I\u2019m not happy. But we\u2019re talking about a game that\u2019s uneventful. What are we even talking about? We could have scored five and there wouldn\u2019t have been any doubt. Let\u2019s talk about games where decisions have a big impact. In this game, zero.\u201d<\/p>\n
Mourinho on his opinion on Real Madrid and Rafael Nadal<\/p>\n
Hats off. Hats off to Real Madrid. And hats off to the great Rafa Nadal. I think he\u2019s a true Madridista and, obviously, to be on the Board of Directors, he has to be. But also, Rafa Nadal is Rafa Nadal. As a coach, I feel incredibly proud to have him with us. And every Madridista will think exactly the same. I just hope that fans of other clubs who love Nadal won\u2019t stop loving him because he\u2019s a Real Madrid fan.<\/p>\n
Mourinho on how the team is doing physically<\/p>\n
\u201cLook, we changed five players between Sunday and today. And between today and Saturday, obviously we\u2019re going to change… I don\u2019t know, four or five. Dean, Konat\u00e9, Tchouameni, Arda… Because it\u2019s very hard, very hard to do it in just two days and after having to travel. Obviously it\u2019s very hard. But… that\u2019s it.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cEveryone who isn\u2019t playing deserves to be. And the proof that I\u2019m not talking nonsense is how those who don\u2019t usually play are performing. Militao had a great game; it took him a while to get into a rhythm, but then he settled down. Endrick… It\u2019s tough for a full-back to have to face him after playing an hour against someone of quality. But as I said, there are many coaches who must be very envious, because when I have problems, I look at the bench and I have so many options… I make changes, we\u2019re 2-2, and I make different ones, because I have a squad of very high quality, and as long as they want to work only for the team, forgetting personal situations, the squad is very strong. We have 12 points; I think we\u2019re qualified. And now it\u2019s about avoiding the playoffs and saving two games, because we have so many… And we have to get what\u2019s missing. I don\u2019t know… 7 or 8 points, something like that. We have to get it.\u201d<\/p>\n
Mourinho on the atmosphere and AEK<\/p>\n
\u201cThe atmosphere was extraordinary. These stadiums are a force to be reckoned with, and that\u2019s why they gave us such an extraordinary match. Honestly, I don\u2019t have time to talk about the AEK players during the game, but if I had to single anyone out, it would be the coach, because the team played differently than usual. They positioned themselves differently. They defended well, countered well, and played without fear. If I had to choose anyone, it would be him.\u201d<\/p>\n
Mourinho on the ending of the match<\/p>\n
\u201cYes, but we fought for that. And when the score was 2-2, we didn\u2019t accept it. That would always be an acceptable result, because it would have put us in with 10 points, but we wanted more, we took risks, and we got the points that now qualify us for the playoffs. Now it\u2019s about getting the points we need to avoid having to play in the playoffs.\u201d<\/p>\n
Mourinho on AEK\u2019s performance<\/p>\n
\u201cThe usual tendency is to say that the stronger team didn\u2019t start well, wasn\u2019t at their best… But I\u2019m telling you the truth, I saw a fantastic AEK. They played above their usual standard. We\u2019ve analyzed many of AEK\u2019s matches: they played their best game, with great intensity from the first minute, winning their duels, winning the first ball, the second ball, always creating dangerous attacks… Then, at 2-2, we didn\u2019t see a team that settled for a draw, that said, \u2018let\u2019s just defend and try to get a point.\u2019 They wanted to win. For me, they played a fantastic game.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWell, I think he played a good game. After that, I decided to freshen things up on the left wing with two substitutions. Cucurella had a yellow card and \u00c1lvaro [Carreras] was fresh. \u00c1lvaro gets forward a lot on the wing and Brahim plays very well centrally. I wanted to bring some fresh legs in there, but Vini played a very decent game in my opinion.\u201d<\/p>\n
Mourinho on Fede Valverde needing to shoot more<\/p>\n
\u201cFede has that ability. When he plays right back, it\u2019s more complicated from that position. I didn\u2019t ask him to shoot today. What I told him was that the game was wide open, that it was a game to be played at high speed, and that both teams were already physically tired. And a fresh player like Fede, with his ability to cover ground, I told him to attack spaces and get into dangerous areas.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Real Madrid manager Jose Mourinho spoke to the media after his team\u2019s second successive Champions League comeback, this…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":906182,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[69],"tags":[134126,403,99],"class_list":["post-906181","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-soccer","tag-real-madrid-cf-europe","tag-soccer","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/906181","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=906181"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/906181\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/906182"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=906181"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=906181"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=906181"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}