A broken Jose Mourinho has spoken after Tottenham Hotspur were dumped out of the UEFA Europa League against all odds on Thursday night, explaining why the result led him to go into the opposition's dressing room after the game.
Spurs took a 2-0 lead into the second leg of their UEL round of 16 clash against Dinamo Zagreb, but suffered a shock 3-0 loss to the Croatian side in extra-time, a result that seems to have caused Mourinho great sadness.
After the match, the Portuguese tactician was full of praise for Zagreb, whose dressing room he went into after the game, but also admitted to being bitterly disappointed by his team's performance and attitude.
"If I forget the last 10 minutes of the extra-time, where we did something to get the different result and go through, in the 90 minutes and in the first half of extra-time, it was one team that decided to leave everything on the pitch," he said, according to the Daily Express.
"They left everything there, sweat, energy, blood. In the end they let even tears of happiness out. Very humble. Very committed. I have to praise them.
"On the other side, my team, I am there, didn't look like they were playing an important match. If for any one of them, it is not an important match... for me it is, for the respect I have for my own career and job. Every match is an important match for me.
"For every Tottenham fan at home, every match matters. Another attitude is needed. To say that I feel sad is not enough. What I feel goes much further than sadness.
"I just left Dinamo's dressing room, I went there to praise the guys and I feel sorry that one team that is not my team won the game based on attitude, based on compromise. I feel more than sad. That's it.
"Football is not just about players who have more quality than others. The basics of football go beyond that. It's the attitude and they beat us on that.
"Many teams I fear my thoughts, my feelings. But I don't blame myself in the sense that I always share them. Before the game I told the players the risk of a bad attitude and even at half-time at 0-0, the risk of playing the way we were playing.
"It happened. I believe the players only realised that the game was at risk when they scored the second goal and it went to extra-time."
