330
Jose Mourinho said he will seek legal counsel, claiming that the fourth official provoked him during the incident that resulted in his dismissal during AS Roma’s shocking 2-1 Serie A loss to relegation-threatened Cremonese on Tuesday.
As a result of Daniel Ciofani’s late penalty, Cremonese earned their first victory of the year, knocking Roma out of contention for the Champions League in fifth place.
Mourinho said that his response was brought on by the way the fourth official treated him before he was given the boot by referee Marco Piccinini at the start of the second half for disobedience. It is the Portuguese manager’s third red card in Serie A this season.
“For the first time in my career a referee has spoken to me in an unjustifiable way,” Mourinho told a postmatch news conference.
“I’m not crazy. And to have the reaction I had is because something happened. I need to know now if I can do something from a legal point of view.”
He added: “Piccinini gave me the red because the fourth official told him so. But the fourth official doesn’t have the honesty to also tell him what he told me, how he treated me and what provoked my reaction.”
Roma are fifth in the table with 44 points, one point behind fourth-placed Lazio
The win was Cremonese’s first victory in Italy’s top league since March 1996, moving them up one place to 19th in Serie A.
“We didn’t deserve to lose,” Mourinho said.
“The excuse of tiredness does not exist … The responsibility is ours, for a lack of intensity, lack of desire to close the game immediately.”
“We paid too high a price, we didn’t deserve to win but we didn’t deserve to lose either. Especially for what we put in the second half, after the equaliser, we all thought we could win and then came the penalty episode.”