While Jose Mourinho is keen to move on from Benfica’s stunning 4-2 win over Real Madrid, he did have one last tribute to make.
The Eagles qualified for the Champions League knockouts thanks to an extraordinary header from goalkeeper Anatoliy Trubin.
There they will again meet Madrid, and another goalkeeper who Mourinho is now a huge fan of.
Speaking ahead of facing Tondela, he interjected to say: “To wrap up the game we played and this week, there’s something I wanted to say, because I didn’t realize it at the end of the game.
“What Courtois did with Trubin was out of this world. I think at the galas they have at the end of the seasons, from UEFA, FIFA, those kinds of things, I think the fair play award has already been given out.
“What he did… I’d venture to say that within the sadness of defeat, he found a few seconds to be happy for his colleague, who did something out of this world.
“That reaction from Courtois , in a space of time when we were only thinking about ourselves, it seemed like we were completely isolated from the world, I didn’t realize…
“It doesn’t surprise me, he was my player, he’s the best goalkeeper in the world and he demonstrated it with this attitude.
“For me, it will also go down in the history of this Champions League. It will, whatever happens in the history of this Champions League, as a great player in this Champions League because what he did with Trubin was incredible.”
Images not only showed Courtois congratulating Trubin, but the Belgian also earned praise online for dragging his teammates to the away end to applaude when they seemed more keen on heading to the dressing room.
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