A livid Jose Mourinho has urged his players to dive like "clowns" after being sent off during Roma 's defeat to Atalanta on Sunday.
Mourinho was sent to the stands just before the hour mark after seeing his side denied a penalty by referee Daniele Chiffi. By that point his side had already gone a goal down to the visitors following a first-half goal from Giorgio Scalvini.
With their manager in the stands, Roma were unable to fight back as they suffered their second defeat of the new season. Mourinho was left infuriated that Chiffi did not award his side a spot-kick when Nicolo Zaniolo was bundled over in the box.
The Roma boss ran onto the pitch to angrily protest and had to be held back by his backroom staff. Chiffi ran over and showed Mourinho a straight red card to send him to the stands.
Mourinho confronted the match officials following the game, with those discussions leading to the Portuguese boss urging his players to begin diving. The angry boss fumed at referee Chiffi following their confrontation.
"The team played well, tonight we had rhythm, balance and control - and I’m pleased about that. There was emotion but I felt it was absolutely under control. Beyond that, there’s no issue - but there was a clear penalty on Nicolo Zaniolo in the first half," he said.
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“I tried to speak to Chiffi after the game; if a referee tells me that it can never be a penalty if a player does not fall over, then I will have to start telling my players to fall over. I asked him to tell me why he had not given a penalty, but Chiffi did not give me a clear answer.
“Well, he said that it was a matter of interpretation. But for me it’s not interpretation; it’s a penalty and that’s it. The player can still continue the action and then they can go back and give a penalty.
"So therefore I have to change my advice to my players, I have to tell them don’t try to stay on your feet, don’t play the ball, be a clown the way many who dive like they’re in a swimming pool do in this league, because that is evidently how you get penalties.”
Mourinho went on to insist that his side had deserved to claim all three points, rather than the defeat they were handed. Roma currently sit sixth in Serie A, four points adrift of leaders Napoli.
“It was the easiest match for us to win so far this season – in other matches like the Monza and Cremonese games we haven’t had control for 90 minutes like that. With Paulo Dybala available maybe things would have worked out differently. We might have scored, but now we can only guess at that," he said..
"But objectively speaking we played really well, we were in control and created a lot of chances against a side that defends well and that’s something. But Atalanta were lucky, and that’s something too.
"It went badly because we lost a game that we should’ve won easily, considering the way we played. If we can imagine this domination we had in the final third, with many chances created, we can speculate that with Paulo on the field it might’ve been different.
“Nonetheless, those who played did well enough to win the game, easily, but unfortunately we did not score and that is why we lost. It is not pleasant to leave empty-handed, but it was a good performance, good spirit. We didn’t dominate Monza or Cremonese here for 90 minutes the way we did Atalanta.”
