It’s certainly not rare for someone to rip the style of play that Manchester United manager Jose Mourinho often employs. It’s rare that he addresses it and hits back though. The tactics yield low-scoring, usually unentertaining football, but they do get points and achieve results.
In a neutral, journalistic tone you would call what Mourinho does “pragmatic.” Many would say that pragmatic is a euphemism too. It’s also commonly called “parking the bus” and “boring” by those who view his style with much disdain.
If you’ll recall his most recent league title, with Chelsea in 2015, fans of rival clubs quite often engaged in chants of “boring, boring Chelsea.”
Jose Mourinho seems just fine with the criticism though, and points to the results that he achieves.
“Not that I read it a lot, but sometimes when I read the press, not only English but Portuguese, I feel that sometimes defending properly is seen as a crime but it is not,” he said after guiding his side to a 1-0 (low scoring!) win at Benfica in UEFA Champions League group play today.
“That’s why we controlled the game because we defended properly and the goal was not against the current of the game, but we end up ending the game and we are almost qualified so that’s it.”
United are all but certain to advance through to the knockout round now having won all three games they have played in Europe thus far.
“You think we have any reason not to be happy?” he continued.
“We are happy, we have nine points, won the match, didn’t concede goals, the game was calm, team was compact, control and almost there. I think one more point to qualify maybe victory to finish first, so all good.”
Paul M. Banks runs The Sports Bank.net and TheBank.News, which is partnered with News Now and Minute Media. Banks, a former writer for the Washington Times, NBC Chicago.com and Chicago Tribune.com, currently contributes regularly to WGN CLTV and Chicago Now.
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