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What is the story?
After watching Tottenham Hotspur's dramatic comeback against Ajax in the second leg of their UEFA Champions League semi-final last night, former Manchester United boss Jose Mourinho has slammed Ajax's defensive duo of Matthijs de Ligt and Daley Blind for giving too much space to Spurs' forwards.
In case you didn't know...
Ajax hosted Tottenham in the second leg of their UEFA Champions League semi-final at the Johan Cruyff ArenA. Ajax scored two first half goals, courtesy of skipper De Ligt and Hakim Ziyech as the aggregate score extended to 3-0.
Tottenham had to score three goals to secure a place in the Champions League final. A hat-trick by Lucas Moura sealed a 3-2 victory for the away side as Spurs managed to grab one of the greatest comebacks in Champions League's history.
The heart of the matter
Nowadays, Mourinho works for beIN Sports as an analyst. In the post-match show, the two-time Champions League winning Portuguese manager said,
“For me, the philosophy is what makes a team grow up in a direction. Every team grows up, you need that base, you need that philosophy, you need that style of play adapted to the quality of the players.
“Ajax deserve all the credit for that and all the admiration of people like us who love football, and we give them the credit they deserve. But football is a sporting battle and in battles you need strategy. And to win matches, especially special matches, for special matches you need sometimes not to be tied to your philosophy.”
Mourinho went on to criticise De Ligt and Blind by saying,
"Sometimes you even need to go against your philosophy to win a football match. And I think if Ajax, in the second half, hide their weaknesses better, but everybody knows their weaknesses, they have to cope with that.
“We saw many examples in their attacking situations, we had other situations where Blind and De Ligt were outside. The basic thing you do when you have an advantage is keep your balance all the time – never unbalanced. The balance starts exactly with the defensive line in position then after that a certain number of players always behind the ball line."
He concluded by admitting,
"But they stuck with their philosophy, they played the game in the second half like they were playing Vitesse in the Dutch league.
They played like it was a group phase game, or one more game in their own league. And I think in this moment they don’t believe what happened to them.
Tottenham changed, they used very, very well direct football, they were lucky, they had the gods of football with them, but they chased that luck.”
What is next?
Tottenham will play their first Champions League final against Liverpool in an all-English encounter on 1st June at Atletico Madrid's Wanda Metropolitano Stadium.
