Mourinho's misguided, mishandling of the Vinicius Jr incident

First things first, Gianluca Prestianni is a coward. Pulling your shirt over your mouth to hide whatever horrendous thing comes out of it is a cowardly act. The man isn’t brave enough to simply say it he uses the shirt of Benfica to cover his sins.

Oddly though, Benfica in an act of incredible self sabotage and lack of decency attempted to cover for him. The Madrid players were too far to hear anything was the claim on social media. Disproved relatively quickly by several other angles and images less carefully selected. Attempting to take the heat out of this horrible situation only seemed to light the touch paper as videos quickly surfaced of Benfica fans making disgusting monkey motions towards players.

Say what you will about people having their phones out at the football but in this instance we need to take a moment to acknowledge the good work done here.

Then up steps Jose. We all expected (maybe foolishly)that Mourinho would condemn this behaviour outright. Put a flag in it, commit to disciplining the player at the very least and doing some work to heal the rift caused in what has become perhaps the most engrossing tie in this season’s Champions League so far given the events of the final league stage game. Call out racism for what is a blight on the game, offer comfort and understanding to Vinicius Jr.

Instead, Jose opted for a ludicrous statement around the great Eusebio, claiming that a statue outside would indicate that Benfica is not racist. The footballing equivalent of ‘some of my best friends are….’An absolutely ludicrous thing to say, even if to protect his player and deflect attention a huge, dumb mistake in claiming that there is no possibility, within the Benfica walls, of racism.

But why stop there! Why simply make this claim when you then attempt to pick at the character of the player caught up in this whole storm? Claiming that the goal celebration was excessive, a history of these ‘type’ of incidents. You mean a player enduring racist slurs and not putting up with it?

Mourinho has completely messed this up for himself. His legacy is one of being special, one of the greats but his legacy is tarnished by comments like this.

There is no excuse for this behaviour on the pitch or off it. If Madrid had refused to play on I would have nothing but respect for the decision. If Mourinho had strung Prestianni out to dry I would have respected that too!

Benfica failed to do the right thing.

Mourinho failed to do the right thing.

What about us?

Maybe you’ve heard it and ignored it. After all they may not be a regular beside you. Maybe it’s one of those revolving seats every week a different character.

Maybe though it is a regular.

Maybe someone with a bit of stroke among supporters or the club. A big character down the social club who always says it with a bit of a joke and jibe to lessen the blow.

Maybe it’s a friend someone who for some reason on a Saturday becomes someone else or perhaps reveals their true colours outside of the shirt they have on.

We’ve seen the video of the fans in the ground that very same night. If like me you watched somewhat dumbfounded, note as well no one steps up to stop it.

That’s the problem right there.

The club will say they can’t control everyone who comes in to the ground. The manager will tell you the club is ‘not like that’ and the organising bodies will do their awareness campaigns and encourage action but the real work comes through us.

While comments like Mourinho’s continue to be platformed at microphones (and not called out by journalists involved but clipped as great content) and the cowards can say anything by hiding behind their team badge, sadly our apathy as fans may be the true cancer.

We all need to do better.