It's started already: Mourinho complaining about refereeing

Benfica fans have learned what hell looks like over the past ten days. After a convincing start to the season, a Champions League qualification, and wins at the beginning of the league campaign, their favorites suddenly ran into problems. In their last three home matches, they haven’t won a single one—despite taking the lead each time. In their Champions League opener, Qarabag stunned Lisbon (2–3), and both before and after that, the Portuguese giants conceded goals in stoppage time: one against Santa Clara (1–1), and one against Rio Ave (1–1).

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And that last one came in the first match Jose Mourinho managed at the Estadio da Luz since returning to his homeland.

"The result is extremely unfair. One team wanted to win, the other wanted a draw. We were penalised with a result that is obviously terrible, against an opponent who scored a fantastic goal from a technical standpoint with their only shot on goal. From the perspective of Benfica's coach, we can't concede that goal in the 90th minute, after 45 minutes of such quality, a tremendous game. We did everything to win. We scored a goal; you can't concede a goal when you're winning 1-0. You can concede a goal at that moment, but in a different way, not where the ball carrier—Enzo or Ríos, if I'm not mistaken—is playing with six players in front of the ball. Having only three is naive. It's naive, it shows a lack of overall experience and a lack of understanding of the game. We should have circulated and not created any danger, which is what we did wrong in the first half. The result and its unfairness hurt, as does the way we conceded the goal” said Mourinho.

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His words sounded like criticism of his players, who just minutes after Georgiy Sudakov’s goal allowed Andre Luiz to equalize on the counter. And what would a Mourinho press conference be without him taking a jab at the referees after a negative result for his team? His main complaint was the disallowed goal by Antonio Silva, as the referees judged it had been preceded by a foul from Nicolas Otamendi.

“I don’t like this new football where the man who was at the stadium becomes the protagonist. If a goal is now canceled just because someone tugged a shirt, then that means the referee has no personality”

Mourinho was furious with Pedro Ferreira, who was in the VAR room, as well as Sergio Gehl, who officiated on the pitch.

"It's modern football, which I'm not obliged to like. I don't like this kind of disallowed goal, whether it's for one side or the other. It doesn't mean I'm being critical. Honestly, I don't think it's a goal that should be disallowed. A player who fakes outside the box, five minutes into the game, gets a yellow card? I don't even know if he faked. But there are players who spend the whole game delaying... But there you go, those are criteria. I don't like to go there, it wasn't that way. It wasn't the referee's decision that we didn't win. The main figure of the match was the man sitting at the headquarters of the Portuguese FA (where the VAR room is), who called the referee to review the situation, and then the referee showed no personality—just as referees usually don’t. When I saw he had been called, I already knew the goal would be disallowed. In the second half we did everything, we scored a goal, but we lost two important points” said Mourinho.