Hjulmand responds to Mourinho: I didn’t understand, I try to have …

Almost four months after Jose Mourinho suggested that Morten Hjulmand was an untouchable player , claiming that the Sporting captain benefited from the leniency of referees, the Danish player responded to the Benfica coach’s statements.

I didn’t understand what he meant by that. But I always try to have a good relationship with the referees. Emotions are part of football and sometimes we may disagree with some decisions. But I don’t pay attention to that. My focus is on winning games and putting on good performances, said the Danish international in an interview with TV2. In this same conversation, led by Jonatan Frimann, a former teammate in Copenhagen’s youth ranks, Hjulmand recalled the difficult times he experienced as a teenager trying to establish himself in football. He was injured for a year and when he returned to play for the under-17 team of the Danish capital club, he received the news that he would continue in the under-15s. I felt a little defeated having to go down and play with people who were younger than me. I remember there were a lot of debts and worries. (…) But I also felt that I needed to regain the confidence that I didn’t have at that time, he said, referring to the health problem (Osgood-Schlatter Syndrome) that caused growing pains affecting his knee area and kept him out of competition for a long time. The others were better than me. They were ahead of me, faster and stronger. So I had to go down a level and play with the kids born in 2000. I started playing a lot of games, scoring goals, making assists, and I became a reference point. That was very good.