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It appears Jose Mourinho is trying to play some of his trademark mind games ahead of Roma's highly-anticipated derby clash against Lazio on Sunday.
'The Special One' was speaking to the Italian press on Thursday night following his side's 2-1 aggregate victory over Vitesse in the Europa Conference League when he suggested that Lazio were "smoking cigarettes" at home with manager Maurizio Sarri.
In a nod to his club's busy fixture schedule of late, Mourinho said: “Obviously, I am not happy that we played today with many players who will also have to be there on Sunday while tonight Lazio are home smoking cigarettes with Sarri, but it’s because Vitesse are really good!”
He added: “Now Sarri is at home smoking his cigarette while I go home trying to think how we can recover from this for Sunday.”
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Tammy Abraham, who has scored 22 goals in all competitions this season for the Giallorossi, sealed their place in the quarter-final stages of the competition after a far-from-convincing performance that saw Vitesse open the scoring.
But after the full-time whistle, Mourinho was clearly thinking ahead as they prepare for their upcoming clash against Maurizio Sarri's Lazio, with those cigarette comments picking up plenty of traction on social media.
Sarri is believed to average around three to four packets of cigarettes a day, according to reports.
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And back in 2019, while on holiday in Ascoli-Piceno in Italy, the former Chelsea manager admitted that he smokes too many.
“I smoke 60 a day, which is probably a few too many,” Sarri told La Nuova Riviera. “I don’t particularly feel the need to smoke during games, but straight afterwards it really is necessary. I had back problems tormenting me for weeks, but I feel much better now.”
In an interview after their win against Venezia on Monday, Sarri commented on the fact Lazio having longer to prepare for the derby compared to their opponents.
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“I’ve always said that we haven’t been able to play three games a week and the numbers show that. We have an average of 2.1 points per game without the Europa League and 0.60 with the Europa League," he told Sky Sports.
“Given that we’ve played eight games in Europe, the maths shows that we’ve dropped about ten points. That’s our limit. Of course playing on Thursday is not like playing on Tuesday or Wednesday. It’s difficult.
“In fact the teams that have played on Thursday have not won and I don’t think that’s by chance. In my opinion, playing on Thursday and Sunday, sometimes after not even 72 hours, is an exaggeration, but this is modern football and whoever gets used to it better gets ahead.”
Featured Image Credit: Sky Sport/AlamyTopics: AS Roma, Lazio, Jose Mourinho, Europa Conference League
