Mourinho on Slavia: He has a great offense and a solid defense. What did the AS Rome coach take from the Prague derby?

On Thursday evening, Slavia Prague will face AS Roma in the third round of Europa League Group G. It will be a duel between the teams currently leading the group. How does the coach of the Italian club José Mourinho see the upcoming duel?

Two games, two wins – that’s the balance of the two teams before Thursday’s clash. Slavia are currently top of Group G, having taken six points in their two matches so far.

Apart from the points, however, Jindřich Trpišovský’s charges have a very good record – 8:0. In the first round of the group stage they defeated Servette 2: 0, then they inflicted a six-goal drubbing on Sheriff Tiraspol.

The Giallorossi defeated the Moldovan team, but only 2: 1. It must be added, Tiraspol finished the match with ten men.

After that, AS came back and won comfortably against Servette 4: 0. Moreover, Rome is in really good form, having won four games in a row, including the league.

However, they also have great form. Since the beginning of September, they have played a total of nine competitions, winning seven of them. The other two matches ended in draws.

Mourinho knows about the quality of Slavia…

“Slavia have a great attack, dynamism and solid defence. I’ve seen it in five games in which it showed two faces. One against Sparta (1:1) and the other against everyone else. Which Slavia we will face tomorrow is the question. We are ready for both,” said Mourinho at the press conference.

“Against Sparta they played more direct, on less possession of the ball. It was a different style of play, a completely different philosophy,” the AS Roma head coach added.

“They have five or six dangerous players up front, and they run their attacks in two or three different ways. Of course, it is harder for us to prepare for the game because they rotate the line-up often,” the Portuguese strategist is clear.

However, Mourinho will not be able to coach his team directly from the bench due to a four-match ban for insulting the referee in last season’s Europa League final. AS Roma will then be missing two other big names in their squad due to injury – Paulo Dybala and Lorenzo Pellegrini.

Source: UEFA, SK Slavia Prague, Aktuálně