Mourinho: “We paid too high a price”

You’ve come away with another loss to Cremonese after they converted two chances. Roma struggled with the technical side of their game in the first half, which proved costly. What are your thoughts?

“Tiredness is no excuse: we played on Thursday and today is Tuesday. We were a little unlucky because they didn’t even create two full chances and got two goals. However, this is down to us. You’re spot on with your comment. We lacked intensity and the desire to get the job done right away.

“It almost seemed like one team wanted to win more than the other, which of course isn’t true. It’s not true because Roma players always want to win. However, it felt like one team was playing the game of their lives and the other not.

“We paid too high a price, because even though we may not have deserved to win, it is equally true that we did not deserve to lose given our reaction and greater dynamism in the second half. After the equaliser, we all thought we could go on to win. Then there was the penalty situation, and we lost a game that we didn’t deserve to lose but that we certainly didn’t deserve to win either.”

What happened with Serra? It all seemed to be calm but we then saw an unusual reaction from you.

“You’ve only known me for a year and a half, but there are people that have known me for many years. I’m emotional but not crazy. To react like that, something must have happened. We need to see if we can do anything from a disciplinary perspective, because Piccinini showed me the red card after the fourth official told him to send me off. Unfortunately, the fourth official doesn’t have the honesty to say what he said to me, how he said it and the way he treated me, which obviously triggered my reaction. I want to see if there’s an audio recording of what he said to me. I don’t want to get into the fact that he’s from Turin, that we have to play Juventus and he wants me off the touchline. I don’t want to get into that. I want to get into the fact that for the first time in my career, a referee, and in this case a fourth official, spoke to me in an unacceptable way.

“After the match, I went into the referees’ dressing room. I’m lucky that Piccinini was the fourth official when I got a red card in a previous match and that he was there when I went to the dressing room to apologise fully to the referee I had spoken to disrespectfully. This time, Piccinini saw me come into the dressing room and say to the fourth official: ‘I want you to be honest and say what has happened.’ He appears to have trouble with his memory and has forgotten.”

Let’s try to reconstruct what happened: you went to ask for his explanation about a foul.

“Not even an explanation, but a comment. In the technical area, normally the fourth official gives you a reason, doesn’t give you a reason or asks you to stay calm, have a drink of water and sit back down.”

What was it he actually said to you?

“I’d prefer to have the recording and for it to be made public.”

The four substitutions you made to try and change the game showed that the squad has more depth compared to the start of the season.

“We did. There were options on the bench to make changes. We didn’t just bring on one player for another but changed our formation. We then saw that they exchanged a striker for a midfielder, putting Soualiho Meite in midfield, so we switched things up again. I think when we pulled it back to 1-1, everyone was asking: “Will it finish 1-1 or 1-2?” Then there was the situation in our penalty area and it finished 2-1 to them and not us.”

Does this defeat have a particularly sour taste for Roma after the start you made to 2023?

“The last thing I said to the players before the game was: ‘Let’s use our imagination. Let’s imagine that this is the last game of the season. Let’s imagine that we’ve played everyone and there’s just one match left to go: Cremonese v Roma. It’s the last one. If we lose, we’ll be in the Europa League. If we draw, we’ll be in the Europa League. If we win, we’ll be in the Champions League. Are we going to win this game or not?’ No. We didn’t win it.”

However, there’s still a chance for us to make it into the Champions League.

“That’s not my focus. I spoke about it as a way to motivate the team before playing the match. It didn’t work. I’m not thinking about the Champions League. As always, I’m focusing on each game as it comes. This one finished just minutes ago. It’s the match that’s fresh in my memory and I’m not thinking about the next one on Sunday. I still can’t leave this game behind. There’s a sense of frustration. Frustration fosters self-critique. It’s a shame what happened with Serra. Perhaps the referee on the pitch today is a great one. Perhaps he’ll be the next Rocchi or Rizzoli or Rosetti or Collina. Perhaps. However, as a person, I respect him as much as he respects me.”