Jose Mourinho has told talkSPORT how substituting Eric Dier, back in November 2019, in the first half of Tottenham’s Champions League game against Olympiacos, ‘broke my heart’ after what happened to Aston Villa’s Jack Grealish against Denmark.
As England reached the final of Euro 2020, Gareth Southgate substituted the Aston Villa man after he came on as a sub and Mourinho recalls how he did something ‘very similar’ in Tottenham colours.
Pretty early on in Mourinho’s reign as Spurs boss, he hauled off Dier after 20 minutes of a European tie against Olympiakos – at the time they were losing 2-0 – but they did go on to win the game.
Well, there was a lot of talk about Southgate bringing Grealis off against the Dane’s moments after Harry Kane had put England into the lead in extra-time.
To the credit of the Villa playmaker, he took it in his stride and saw the bigger picture, which was his country being in a major final for the first time in 55 years.
But Mourinho admitted that he didn’t like the call from Southgate, as he compared it to the decision he made on Dier.
“I didn’t like, too,” said Mourinho about Grealish being subbed as a sub. “But I’ve done not just very similar but probably even worse.
“We started a game in the Champions League with Tottenham against Olympiakos, and after 20 minutes I had to make a change. We were losing 2-0 and I brought Eric Dier out. It was something that broke my heart but I did it for the team.
“Probably Gareth tried to explain to Grealish why he did that. It was not with the intention to hurt Jack, I’m pretty sure of that.it was the intention to try and help the team.
“But honestly, I didn’t see a reason for that. England was not in trouble, England were in control and Denmark were exhausted physically and mentally.
“I could even feel with Jack having more space and with the game totally broken, I could see Jack helping England to resolve the game even easier and to kill it – but I am 100 per cent sure Gareth did that with an intention of thinking about the team and not about hurting the player.”
Well, throughout this tournament, Southgate has made calls, which if he got them wrong, then he would have had a lot of stick come his way.
But that’s what has been unique about England’s journey to the final, the former centre-back has done it his way and his way only.
And now, the Three Lions are 120 minutes away from winning their first major trophy since 1966, as the tricky and tactically smart Italian’s stand in their way.
It’s probably going to go to penalties, isn’t it?!
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