Benfica plays with Desp. Chaves (tomorrow, Friday, October 17th, at 7:30 pm), in the 3rd round of the Portuguese Cup, a game that José Mourinho hopes to win. “It’s a typical Portuguese Cup game, with a team from a lower division [II Liga]but not with inferior football. It will require seriousness from us, starting with me, and being able to transmit it to the players. It’s respect for Benfica and the fans, and for Chaves, who have quality. You have to be serious. If we win things will be seen naturally, if we lose it won’t be like that”, acknowledged the coach, warning in advance that the team will “change very little”. And without Richard Ríos: “He was the last to arrive, he didn’t train with the team, we have to make options.”
Returning to the club competition after a break for the national team games, qualifying for the 2026 World Cup, can be seen in two ways, in the opinion of the Special One. “The negative side is that often in national teams you don’t train much and those who don’t play don’t train much. But yesterday and today we ended up having the conditions to work well. The risk is not playing well, it’s Chaves having a fantastic game, which will normally happen. The preparation for the game was aimed at avoiding this. We analyzed Chaves well and tried to work around its weak and strong points. We have to play well.”
In 2004, Mourinho lost the Portuguese Cup final in a farewell to FC Porto and Portuguese football. In Chaves he will return to the premier race and recalled that he “would really like” to return to Jamor. “Benfica has one less Cup than it should have, last season it should have won. Benfica has a Cup tradition, I went to Jamor countless times with my father, it continues to be something that still moves me for me. Having never played in a Portuguese Cup final as a Benfica coach… I really liked it. Today the Portuguese Cup is much more important than the Champions League, on Saturday it will be the opposite”defended the coach, who in 2003 lifted the dragon trophy to his chest.
The lost final was… the fault of a goal by Simão Sabrosa, who is now director of Benfica and shares the bench with Mourinho. “When he went to Barcelona, I was the one waiting for him at the airport. He was a boy who was going to a European giant and who had a Portuguese member of staff waiting for him. I had already been at the club for two years and I created a relationship with him, not like a father and son, but almost like an older brother. It’s a loving relationship because it started there. We didn’t talk about that game because I remember the good moments more than the bad. But of course I do. I remember going down the stairs like a loser, a lot of Benfica fans saying “now you’re going to be European champion”. I remember being positively stimulated”.
Challenged to comment on the climate of tension in Portuguese football, with the exchange of pennants between presidents Rui Costa (Benfica), Frederico Varandas (Sporting) and André Villas-Boas (FC Porto), José Mourinho referred to the “role of coach”. “I limit myself to being a coach and looking at the games with a coach’s eyes, even when I’m not a coach of the teams involved I can’t look at them without a coach’s eyes. And last year’s Cup final was an unfortunate job for the refereeing team, including the VAR who are more important, sometimes more than the referees who are on the field. The problems between the presidents are almost a historical thing, but then when the emotions fade, there comes the feeling that they have to be united in favor of Portuguese football and in resolving some problems. It’s nothing new or alarming. It’s good for you, it helps you in your work. Sometimes referees make mistakes and sometimes decisively. I look at it from a coach’s perspective, we all make mistakes, but when mistakes translate into important changes to the truth of the game it’s harder to accept. But I look at it with a coach’s eyes”, said the Benfica coach.