Jose Mourinho’s AS Roma were defeated 6-1 in the Europa Conference League on Thursday night in one of the biggest shocks of the season.
Mourinho, who took the reins in Rome over the summer following his dismissal by Tottenham Hotspur, has enjoyed a mostly positive start to the campaign.
The defeat to Juventus last time out in Serie A was an unfavourable result, but AS Roma were the stronger side on the balance of play – they’ve looked good under Jose.
Though the Portuguese boss made changes as AS Roma made the trip to Norway to face FK Bodø/Glimt, nobody could have foreseen what would happen next.
It got so bad for the Italian giants that their own Twitter account didn’t even report the score at full-time.
Full-time in Norway.
#ASRoma #UECL #GlimtRoma pic.twitter.com/zZSFoWsTG7— AS Roma English (@ASRomaEN) October 21, 2021
FYI, they lost 6-1.
It was the heaviest defeat that Mourinho has ever suffered in his illustrious coaching career. That probably won’t surprise you, considering how defensively compact his teams usually are.
1 – A José Mourinho side has conceded 6+ goals in a single game for the first time ever, in what is the 1008th match of his managerial career. Shock.
— OptaPaolo 🏆 (@OptaPaolo) October 21, 2021
Mourinho pulled no punches post-match, as you’d expect, tearing into AS Roma’s second-string side and hinting that the cracks are beginning to show ALREADY.
Mourinho: “I selected tonight’s team with good intentions. But there’s a huge gulf in quality between our first choice and second choice players. If I could use the same players every match I would.”
https://t.co/IDnpjm3j9l— RomaPress (@ASRomaPress) October 21, 2021
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As for his players, they were angrily confronted by the travelling supporters after going over to show their appreciation. All that cash spent to travel to Norway – for what?
The AS Roma fans who travelled to Norway confronted the players after Roma lost 6-1 to Bodo/Glimt pic.twitter.com/Td30lt39jG
— Lupo TV (@LupoTVofficial) October 21, 2021
There’s usually a ‘third season syndrome’ with Mourinho, but we may well have been fast-tracked to that stage already. The Mourinho meltdown is already in full swing.