I was a victim of public opinion in the Vinicius and Brestiani crisisJosé Mourinho has opened up on his relationship with referees, speaking in the wake of a derby crisis that ended in a 1-2 defeat for his Real Madrid side.The AS newspaper carried the Portuguese’s comments from his interview with Corriere dello Sport. “My relationship with referees? I don’t think the problem lies with me as a person. The problem is the bad luck I face when I arrive at a certain club.””I lived through the important phase of the Negreira case here at Real Madrid,” he continued. “Nobody knew about it, but we lived through it. It happened.”He left before the storm broke. “Now everyone knows about it. But I was thinking of something else, in Turkey, after a major Turkish scandal, this kind of situation used to happen to me a lot.”Next matchesBARLaLiga11 Oct 202600:30GETRMALaLiga11 Oct 202603:00VILMourinho then recalled his return to the Bernabeu. “Usually, there is first contact, then the noise begins when there is already something in place. But here the exact opposite happened. The noise began when there was no contact at all. I was at Benfica, happy. It’s a special club for me, and it’s 10 minutes from my house, something that had not happened in 20 years.”A three-year deal looked set to keep him there. “The club needed a radical change. I thought I would stay there under my three-year contract. Then the noise began. I was surprised by it and gave it no importance. I told myself: just a rumour.”Changes were already afoot in Madrid. “Real Madrid had changed its manager midway through the season, then Arbeloa came. The results were not yet known, and the noise began. But nobody told me anything. When the rumours started, I told myself that this could not be true. I never thought that it might be real.”On the incident between Prestianni and Vinícius, he commented: “It was a very delicate and difficult point for us, because in the end Prestianni was suspended, and not because of racism. I was a victim of public opinion, and primarily of many opportunists, over a situation that was completely out of control.”He added: “You have a player saying this is not true. And nobody has proof that it is true. You cannot take a stance. And whatever you say, public opinion will still be wrong. What I really like at the end of this story is that, on one hand, there was a wonderful young man, and on the other hand, there was an exemplary young man.”
