Jose Mourinho: 'Samuel Eto'o did an intelligent action'

We all saw the injustice that happened in Stamford Bridge over the weekend, well if you missed it, Sportunes is reliving it with the above and below GIFS.



Chelsea were 1-0 down when Samuel Eto’o poked the ball away from Marshall as the keeper bounced it in preparation for a kick out of his hands. Referee Taylor allowed play to continue and Hazard slotted home. When the man in the middle blew for a goal, he blew for a breach of the 12th Law of the game:

'When a goalkeeper has gained possession of the ball with his hands, he cannot be challenged by an opponent.

'A goalkeeper is considered to be in control of the ball while the ball is between his hands and any surface (e.g. ground) and while in the act of bouncing it on the ground.'

But instead of being remorse about the whole unsportmanship behavior from his boys, Chelsea manager Jose Mourinho told the victim of the day - Cardiff's goalie David Marshall that he deserved the misfortune.

Mourinho fumed: ‘Even with space, he took 30 seconds. The goalkeeper has six seconds to have the ball, correct? They had almost half a minute.

‘That’s breaking the rules. We played our game, a difficult game, and we deserved to win. If I was in that game and I was paying for a ticket, I would be worried with the fact that every time the ball was out or stopped and our opponent had to put the ball back in the game, it took an average of 21.5 seconds. That is a waste of money. You pay for your ticket and every time the game stops you have to wait about half a minute?

‘When you multiply that by the number of times the game was stopped, you pay for 90 minutes but you see 55 or 60. For me, that’s breaking the rules. Scoring a goal with a hand, that breaks the rules.

‘Score a goal that was not a goal, as happened in Germany last week, that’s not funny. In England, there is not any more the goal that is not a goal, but in our time, John Terry was crying in the dressing room because we lost a semi-final in the Champions League and the ball didn’t cross the line.’

‘Samuel did an intelligent action. When I arrived home the first thing I told my kid who likes to play goalkeeper was, "See the goal and don’t do that, eh?"

‘If FIFA says that it’s a foul, it’s a foul but Samuel did well. Maybe the referee did wrong. But in my opinion, that should be allowed as it was for years.’


If I was Jose Mourinho, I would ask for a replay of that game.