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‘Nobody likes to play in the final of the losers’ - Jose Mourinho on bronze medal game (VIDEO)
RT special World Cup host Jose Mourinho said that the teams who lost their respective semi-finals should be given rest instead of playing the third place playoff, which in his view “makes no sense.”
“In my opinion this is a game that doesn’t make sense,” Mourinho said.
“I think players, managers, even fans after losing the semi-final they just deserve to go home and in the professional case to have rest and prepare for the next season. Nobody likes to play the final of the losers. But when you have to, you have to do it in a positive way. The managers have to be the first ones to motivate the players, they have to be the first ones to say that a bronze medal is better than nothing,” he continued.
“Are they going to forget that they lost probably a chance of a career? No way, they are not going to forget that. But I agree it’s better to finish third than fourth,” he added.
Speaking from the RT studio in Manchester, the Portuguese manager said that losing in the bronze medal match has an even bigger negative effect on the team, which will have to come home with two straight losses.
“When you reach the semi-final, you are almost touching the sky. If you lose the semi-final and then if you lose the third and the fourth match [the bronze-medal game], you go home after two defeats. So instead of going home with a feeling ‘Ok I didn’t touch the sky, but I was almost there,’ you go home after two defeats. It looks like you are going home as a loser. But in fact the bigger losers are those who were knocked out after the group stage,” concluded Mourinho.