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Jose Mourinho in tears as he celebrates Roma beating Leicester to reach Europa Conference final in ‘extraordinary performance’
It’s nowhere near the biggest final Jose Mourinho has ever reached, but things still got a little too much for the Roma boss as his side beat Leicester in the Europa Conference League semi-final.
The iconic Portuguese boss often wears his heart on his sleeve, but looked more emotional than ever as Tammy Abraham downed the Premier League side, provoking tears in the dugout.
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Abraham’s 11th minute effort proved to be enough for a 2-1 win on aggregate, making Mourinho the first manager to reach a major European final with four different clubs.
The 59-year-old has reached finals, and won them, with Porto and Inter in the Champions League, and Manchester United in the Europa League, which he also won with Porto in 2003.
And he will now look to make it four from four when Roma take on Feyenoord for the inaugural Conference League trophy in Albania on May 25.
Mourinho has often been spiky with the press since returning to Italy, but showed his emotion was genuine post-match.
“I am so tired, I want to go home!” he told Sky Sport Italia.
“It’s a victory of the family. Not just the one that was on the pitch and on the bench, but in the stadium. That is our greatest achievement, this empathy and sense of family we have created with the fans.
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“I think our performance was extraordinary, others might see it differently, but when your goalkeeper makes two saves over 120 minutes against a Premier League side with so much attacking quality, it means we’ve done something good.
“The lads deserve this, we have three Serie A games left to end as well as possible. We’ve had a fantastic trajectory to reach the final, we dropped points in Serie A to achieve that, but now we are in the final and we want to win.”
The Italian giants will now contest their first major European final since 1991, with a manager that was the last to lift a continental trophy with an Italian side, when Mourinho won the treble with Inter in 2010.
Much of Mourinho’s success this season has been thanks to former Chelsea man Abraham, who was again decisive, but his manager clearly knows the best method of motivation.
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“Tammy knows, I refuse to speak highly of him,” he explained. “Because he can do better and he knows that!
“He is a great player with potential to be even greater. I refuse to praise him. He needs to work this hard in every game, not just when we are up against Lazio or fighting for a European Final!”
And England striker Abraham similarly agreed that he shouldn’t be taking any credit.
“Before the game started, the fans won us this game,” he told BT Sport.
“We could hear them before getting into the stadium and throughout the warm-up. We weren’t even on the pitch and we heard them.
"The win was for them and my team. Hopefully we can go all the way.”
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