Italians only know how to criticise, says Mourinho

Inter Milan coach Jose Mourinho hit out on Saturday claiming Italians prefer to criticise rather than look for solutions.

Speaking at Saturday’s pre-match press conference ahead of the trip to Cagliari in Sardinia on Sunday, Mourinho launched an attack on his adopted home.

“When I see the Italian press criticising their own teams playing in European competition it’s easy to see that we are a country that knows only how to criticise and not how to find solutions,” he said.

“We’re a country that loves crying floods of tears over problems and doesn’t do anything to solve them.

“When we play against another country we can see they have the opposite approach.

“When it comes to playing in Europe everyone pushes in the same direction. Here it’s the opposite.

“We’re always negative and never positive; Portuguese and Italians are twins in that respect,” added Mourinho.

Mourinho also hit out at those in the press who criticised his team for their performance in the 0-0 draw at home to title-holders Barcelona in the Champions League on Wednesday, such as former coach Alberto Zaccheroni.

“Luckily I’m someone who either gets mad or laughs about what these greats write in the press, like the person who lost 5-1 at home to Arsenal (Zaccheroni in the 2003/04 season),” said the former Chelsea coach.

“In these situations I prefer to laugh and to keep on doing what I’m doing and to remember that our last three Champions League matches were against the last two European champions (Barca and Manchester United).

“To conclude the debate about the Champions League I can advise you all to look at the statistics regarding (goalkeepers) Julio Cesar (of Inter), (Juventus’s Gianluigi) Buffon, (AC Milan’s Marco) Storari and (Fiorentina’s Sebastien) Frey to understand that tomorrow Julio won’t be able to play because he’s really tired from watching the (Barca) game,” Mourinho added ironically.

Inter were criticised for being second best to Barcelona on their own pitch, although despite the Spaniards dominating possession they created little more than Inter and Julio Cesar made only one significant save in the game, tipping over a shot from outside the box from Lionel Messi.

Mourinho could restore Serbian Dejan Stankovic to the starting line-up for the trip to Cagliari while Argentine midfielder Esteban Cambiasso is also pushing for a recall after injury.