Jose Mourinho Very Sure of Stadium Measurements
Jose Mourinho made of complains to Uefa about the size of the goalposts before Tottenham’s Europa League play-off game against Shkendija in North Macedonia which his team later won 3-1. According to the former Manchester United and Chelsea manager, he said: “Before the game was a funny situation because my goalkeepers told me that the goal was small.” Goals by Erik Lamela, Son Heung-min and Harry Kane earned Spurs a 3-1 victory, with boss Mourinho playing his own unique part before the match after keepers Joe Hart and Hugo Lloris pointed out the irregularity during the warm-up.
“I am not a goalkeeper but I know football since I was a kid and I know when I stand there and I spread my arms and I know the distance, so I felt immediately that something was going wrong. “We got the Uefa delegate to confirm and yes it was 5cm smaller, which of course we demanded for the goals to be replaced for goals of the right dimension.”
“I went by myself and of course the goal was small. The goalkeepers, they spend hours and hours and hours in the goal so they know when the goal is not the right dimension.” There are no suggestions of foul play from Shkendija as the stadium in the North Macedonian capital Skopje is not their home ground. Their own stadium was not used as it does not meet Uefa requirements.
Mourinho came out on to the pitch, kind of stretched up and agreed with his keepers. He said the goals were too small and spoke to the Uefa delegate, who then came out presumably with his tape measure. He measured the goals and they were both 5cm too small. They took both goals down, adjusted them and made them higher.
The manager uploaded a picture on his Instagram stretching up trying to touch the crossbar. You can pretty much touch it. There’s one of Lloris there as well. It was all very bizarre. The home side have said ‘it’s not our stadium, we didn’t know anything about this’. Both goals were too small and before kick-off they came on and took them down and made them bigger.
