Jose Mourinho hailed a \u201cfantastic victory\u201d after Manchester United stole the thunder of Cristiano Ronaldo and a dominant Juventus with a 2-1 win in the Champions League on Wednesday.<\/p>\n
A jubilant Mourinho made the most of the last-gasp victory, going onto the pitch at full-time and cupping his ear to jeers from the crowd, who had earlier cheered former Juventus player Paul Pogba on his return to Turin.<\/p>\n
Juventus players Leonardo Bonucci and Paulo Dybala confronted Mourinho with United captain Ashley Young intervening as Mourinho was led off the pitch by a UEFA official.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey insulted me for 90 minutes. I came here to do my job, nothing more,\u201d said former Inter Milan coach Mourinho.<\/p>\n
\u201cI didn\u2019t offend anyone at the end, I just made a gesture that I wanted to hear them louder. I probably shouldn\u2019t have done it, with a cool head I wouldn\u2019t have.\u201d<\/p>\n
Ronaldo\u2019s superb volley \u2014 his first European goal for Juventus \u2014 had put the Italian champions in control after 65 minutes, two weeks after Dybala scored in the only goal at Old Trafford.<\/p>\n
But substitute Juan Mata\u2019s free-kick on 86 minutes sparked a stunning revival that breathed new life into the visitors\u2019 Champions League campaign.<\/p>\n
Juve were then left in shock as Ashley Young\u2019s free-kick from the left bounced in off a combination of Bonucci and Alex Sandro after a frantic scramble in front of goal.<\/p>\n
It left Mourinho\u2019s side just two points behind leaders Juventus with two matches to play in Group H.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s a fantastic victory for us, a victory that is not just about the points we lost at home but the feeling of how well we played,\u201d said Mourinho.<\/p>\n
\u201cAnd I think even if this game hadn\u2019t ended with victory I would have the same feeling that the team played really, really well from the first minute against a super team.\u201d<\/p>\n
Juventus had dominated the match for long periods with Sami Khedira and Dybala both rattling the woodwork, only for the hosts to get distracted after Ronaldo\u2019s goal.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe dominated for the 90 minutes. We had two or three clear chances and we should have been able to put the game to bed with ease, but we paid for switching off,\u201d said Ronaldo after his team\u2019s first defeat this season.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s never nice to lose, but maybe this defeat comes at the best possible time. We have a great team, we\u2019re top of the group and I\u2019m sure we\u2019ll go through as group winners.\u201d<\/p>\n
Mourinho\u2019s decision to bring on Mata and\u00a0Marouane Fellaini in place of Ander Herrera and Alexis Sanchez on 79 minutes paid off.<\/p>\n
And the Portuguese coach recalled bygone days going back to United\u2019s time under Alex Ferguson.<\/p>\n
\u201cProbably when Manchester United had heroics here (in the past) Manchester United was the best team and they (Juventus) are a top team for many years now,\u201d said Mourinho.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey bought that player (Ronaldo), they want to win everything, they can win everything and we are a team where many of the players didn\u2019t play big matches like this in the Champions League.\u201d<\/p>\n
The victory also gave the United coach optimism before next week\u2019s Premier League clash against table-toppers Manchester City at Etihad Stadium.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe played this season against Chelsea and Juventus away, the two best teams that we face this season and we played very well in both,\u201d said Mourinho.<\/p>\n
\u201cHere we were lucky to win in last minute, against Chelsea unlucky not to win in last minute but we played very, very well and this is what we want.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe want to play well, we want to go to every stadium, and it doesn\u2019t matter the team.<\/p>\n
\u201cI want the feeling (that) it doesn\u2019t matter where we go, we go to compete and this is the feeling the Manchester United supporters around the world want.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Jose Mourinho hailed a \u201cfantastic victory\u201d after Manchester United stole the thunder of Cristiano Ronaldo and a dominant Juventus with a 2-1 win in the Champions League on Wednesday. A jubilant Mourinho made the most of the last-gasp victory, going onto the pitch at full-time and cupping his ear to jeers from the crowd, who […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2567,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[221,1283,1517,829,1370],"class_list":["post-2566","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-sports","tag-champions-league","tag-cristiano-ronaldo","tag-jose-mourinho","tag-juventus","tag-manchester-united"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/theblogonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2566"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/theblogonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/theblogonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theblogonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theblogonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2566"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/theblogonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2566\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2568,"href":"https:\/\/theblogonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2566\/revisions\/2568"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theblogonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/2567"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/theblogonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2566"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theblogonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2566"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theblogonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2566"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}