Roma played themselves but at least Mourinho’s men have their dignity

Blatant time-wasting, multiple bookings and sideline scuffles between rival benches. Diving, dissent and an exasperated referee left at the end of his tether upon being driven to distraction by the petulant touchline histrionics of José Mourinho. We have been here before, 20 years ago, on a warm Seville evening when Porto sh1thoused their way to Big Vase victory over Celtic under the supervision of a certain Special One.

On Thursday night we saw it all again, except on this occasion it is almost certainly no exaggeration to state that Mourinho masterminded defeat for his Roma side, his own touchline chicanery (and that of a team of backroom staff tasked with badgering and baiting the fourth official on rotation) almost certainly proving a distraction. His Roma players were motoring along very nicely against serial winners Sevilla until they blunderbussed themselves in both feet by opening the scoring.

Electing not to play anything much in the way of more football, Mourinho’s side chose not to press home their advantage but instead elected to sit back, concede the inevitable equaliser and then foul, timewaste, argue and play-act their way to a penalty shootout they would go on to mess up. At which point, the eye-gouging, team doctor-abusing, inciter of tribal moon-howlers some still view as a roguishly charming but ultimately harmless devil really lost it.

The main target of his ire? The referee, Anthony Taylor, who delivered a man-of-the-match performance in the face of repeated harassment, intimidation and downright cheating from the players of Roma and their support staff. “It was an intense, vibrant game with a referee who seemed Spanish,” Mourinho said. “It was yellow, yellow, yellow all the time,” he added, only