The media had a lot to ask to Mourinho when he walked in the press room, and the Portuguese coach revealed his thoughts about the game and Madrid's chances of getting the win next Wednesday.
I always understand Madrid fans, but I don't listen. The responsibility is mine, specially when the team loses. The victory has a lot of fathers, the losses only one.
Altintop and Carvalho played a competitive game and when asked about them, Mourinho defended his players until the end:
Carvalho played well and Altintop did his job. Other players that usually play well didn't do so today. I've to defend this two players for being at the team's disposal in such a difficult match.
Who was Mourinho talking about? He might be talking about Lass and Higuaín, the players he decided to take out, or Alonso and Ramos because they were key players and certainly didn't play at their best.
About Pepe's flagrant action, Mourinho was simply correct:
I haven't seen anything from Pepe, I haven't seen the images, I have to do that. If there's a clear and intentional stomp on Messi, then of course, that's reprehensible.
After Mourinho put the blame on him, he also felt the need of blaming Barcelona's first goal. Their second goal already came when Madrid was playing the way Barcelona wants them to do it, so it was probably the set piece goal what took Madrid away from the game.
What I didn't expect is to get scored in a set piece when we are up 1-0, which is always a bad result for the visitor. That goal affected us mentally and brought Barcelona up. In the first half we missed that last, definite pass. We expected a more dominant Barcelona.
Real Madrid faces a very difficult game as Athletic Bilbao will visit Santiago Bernabéu Sunday. That is all the team is thinking about.
The leg is still open but very hard. Now we are going to look at Bilbao's game and La Liga. We already said that was the main competition and we did so before this result.