DBasia.news – It’s been 11 years since Jose Mourinho last coached an Italian Serie A team. At that time The Special One coached Inter Milan and left a legacy of the treble winners. Now the coach is back in Serie A and gushing the capital team, AS Roma.
His debut as coach of Il Giallorossi was marked by a 3-1 victory over Fiorentina at the Stadio Olimpico, Monday (23/08) early morning WIB. Henrikh Mkhitaryan scored one goal (26′) followed by Jordan Veretout (64′ 79′) which was saved by Nikola Milenkovic (60′).
Mkhitaryan scored and provided an assist, as was Abraham who provided two assists. According to Opta Abraham provided two assists in one game for the first time in Europe’s top five leagues.
It underscores Abraham’s ambition to succeed and thrive by leaving Chelsea. In Rome he not only replaced Edin Dzeko who left for Inter Milan but also got the trust of Mourinho.
“It’s not easy to leave someone on the bench, but Eldor Shomurodov can play on the left, he can also be a striker with Tammy,” said Mourinho, quoted by Football-Italy.
“At the moment, neither of them are in the same condition as the players who trained in pre-season from day one, so I thought to use (Lorenzo) Pellegrini at the back.”
“Shomu is very dangerous attacking space, Tammy is more of a reference point, so even if he’s not tired at that stage I’ll make a substitution a few minutes later.”
“We have a lot of different solutions, but at the moment what I like is the spirit, the defensive organization is already there, but Fiorentina made it very, very difficult for us. Italiano deserves a lot of credit, because his team played really well at the start of the season.”
Jose Mourinho’s record
Good start for Roma and also Mourinho. The Portuguese coach immediately broke the record at the start of the 2021-2022 Serie A season.
Still from Opta, Mourinho became the fastest manager to reach 50 wins in Serie A (from 77 matches). Mourinho is also the fastest manager to reach 50 wins both in the Premier League (63 games) and in LaLiga (62 games).
“Please don’t show me my negative records, only good ones,” Mourinho joked on Instagram.
It’s not Mourinho if you don’t create drama. Nicolo Zaniolo received a red card in the 52nd minute, while in the Fiorentina side Bartlomiej Dragowski got a red card in the 17th minute.
“It was a real, entertaining game, even though we didn’t play well. We were good 11 against 11, 10 against 10 good, but not 11 against 10,” Mourinho told DAZN.
“That’s when we lost our reference points, strangely it was more difficult to press. After we lost Zaniolo, we got back into the game, scored two, then three and from then on had control.
“After the game, I went to Vincenzo Italiano and told him that Fiorentina are a team that obviously has a great coach.”