“Done nothing to win”
Mourinho complains about the German Champions League team
Updated on November 6, 2025 – 2:07 p.mReading time: 2 minutes
Bayer Leverkusen secured an important victory in the Champions League on Wednesday. The “Werkself” relied on a stable defense.
Bayer Leverkusen can breathe a sigh of relief: The German runner-up secured important points in the Champions League, winning 1-0 at Benfica in Lisbon. Leverkusen started with a very young team. Talents like Ibrahim Maza (19 years old), Claudio Echeverri (19), Christian Kofane (19) and Ernest Poku (21) were allowed to start – the starting eleven had an average age of 23.9 years.
Coach Kasper Hjulmand praised his young team. “We probably had the youngest team on this Champions League match day,” added the Dane.
José Mourinho was far less positive about Leverkusen. Benfica’s Portuguese coach said: “They didn’t do anything to win.” In an interview with the TV station CBS, he added: “The better team lost. The only team that created chances lost. We had a fantastic build-up to the game and had good control of the game. It wasn’t a difficult game, it was an easy game. We created so many chances.”
He saw the reasons for Leverkusen’s victory as an “individual mistake that led to probably the only shot on goal of the day.” The defeat felt “unfair, but that’s football.”
Mourinho struggled with his team’s use of chances: “We hit the crossbar, we hit the goalkeeper, we miss the goal. We want to dribble around the goalkeeper when the goal is free.” But he liked the performance itself: “If we play like that, we’ll win games. If you play like that ten times, you’ll win nine times.”
After four games in the Champions League, Benfica doesn’t have a single point. The Portuguese are threatened with an early exit. But Mourinho remains optimistic: “The mathematics tells me that it is still possible. There are still twelve points to be awarded and you might need nine to avoid elimination.”