If you’re a football manager at the highest level, every little helps.
Whether it be getting the best out of your own team through motivation, or talking the opposition out of playing their best football, anything goes.
Tottenham manager Jose Mourinho has long been one for the mental arts of football, even if it hasn’t worked as well for him in recent years.
He still has a lot of fans, and that extends to footballers he’s tried to put off during matches, including Brighton & Hove Albion’s Ezequiel Schelotto.
The defender has been speaking to the media constantly during the Covid-19 crisis, and this time has shared a few words with TyC Sports, from Argentina.
As part of the chat, the Brighton player told TyC how Mourinho has tried to put him off his game on two occasions, once whilst manager at Manchester United, and once whilst at Tottenham Hotspur.
Schelotto explained: “Jose, a great, it is those coaches that amaze you, not only for his way of being but with the whole show they do. I love those things, the tricks he has.
“Three years ago in a game of the FA Cup against Manchester United. It was very cold and it began to snow, we were losing 1-0. The ball goes to the side and one of their players had just been injured, I am going to throw fast and he appears and tells me: ‘No, stop, stop’… and I stop the play, the game stops and he starts talking to me.
“He took me out of the game and started talking about Sporting Lisbon, he asked me what Brighton was like. We even talked about the weather, haha. And every time I face him we cross words. Not long ago against Tottenham he told me ‘stop running’. I love Jose Mourinho, he is spectacular.”
Schelotto also spoke about Brighton signing Alexis Mac Allister, insisting his club did ‘very well’ to get the deal done.
