Jose Mourinho has bitten back at Rafael Benitez and his wife Montse, after the latter made a series of harmless comments about the Chelsea manager which were published by the press earlier this week.
“We tidy up his messes,” Montse Benitez joked (via the Echo) after being asked about how her husband seems to join clubs after Mourinho leaves them.
“If you think about it, of course you end up crossing paths. There are only a few world-class clubs out there.”
The Portuguese has taken it appallingly, and since claimed the Spanish woman is ‘a bit confused’ – while he also told her that she needs to take greater care of her husband’s diet.
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Both managers have worked at Inter Milan and Real Madrid, as well as with the Blues, but Mourinho was distinctly unimpressed with Montse’s recent comments.
“The lady is a bit confused,” he said (via BBC Sport). “Her husband went to Chelsea to replace Roberto Di Matteo and he went to Real Madrid and replaced Carlo Ancelotti.
“The only club where her husband replaced me was at Inter Milan, where in six months he destroyed the best team in Europe at the time. If she takes care of her husband’s diet, she will not have any time to talk about me.”
Mourinho and Benitez have regularly been at loggerheads with each other over the years, following an intense rivalry between Chelsea and Liverpool during the middle of the last decade. Their arguments only intensified following a series of high-profile Champions League matches – most notably the semi-finals in 2005 and 2007 – and several years of working around Europe doesn’t appear to have eased relations.
As the BBC state, Benitez himself famously said of his rival: “Me and Jose were really good friends until Liverpool started beating Chelsea. Since then, he’s changed his mind.”
This one looks like it could run for some time to come – but there’s no doubt at all in our minds that Mourinho has behaved awfully when Rafa’s wife was clearly speaking in jest.
Mourinho’s comments could be interpreted as sexist and patronising towards Montse, and downright disrespectful and out of order to Rafa.
We know whose side we’re on…