Roma manager Jose Mourinho – who was showed a red card by Italian referee Marco Serra – was not happy seeing his side concede a late penalty, effectively gifting Cremonese their first Serie A win of the season.
The Portuguese technician analyzed the match in his interview with DAZN at full-time.
“There is no excuse of fatigue or tiredness tonight,” said the Special One. “We were a bit unlucky and conceded two avoidable goals.”
“The responsibility is ours: lack of intensity, our inability to win the game in the opening stages. It is certainly not true that one team wanted it more than the other. Roma players always want to win. This was not a match we deserved to win, but we certainly didn’t deserve to lose either. After the draw we all thought the winning goal could come, then the penalty was given against us.”
“The referee? I’m emotional, but not a madman. Something happened which explains my reaction. I have to understand if I can do something from a legal point of view: Piccinini gave me the red card, because unfortunately the fourth official doesn’t have the ability to say what he said to me. I want to understand if there is an audio recording of what happened.”
“I don’t want to go into the fact that Serra is from Turin and that we play Juve on Sunday. For the first time in my career, a fourth official spoke to me that way.”
“At the end of the game I went to talk to them: Piccinini, who was fourth man in another game in which I was sent off, asked me to apologize to Serra. I told Serra to have the courage to tell what happened, but he has memory issues.”
“The last thing I said to the players before today was to imagine it was the last game of the season: if we lose or draw we qualify for Europa League, if we win we qualify for Champions League. We didn’t win.”
“I’m going to think game by game. I can’t think about Champions League. I can’t even think about Juventus on Sunday. There’s plenty of frustration tonight, which will force us to analyze this performance.”
