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Football

27th Apr 2015

VIDEO: Getting the opposition manager’s name wrong almost led to a scrap in Portugal

So close to kicking right off

Darragh Murphy

There’s something strangely belittling about someone getting your name wrong.

As a Darragh, I’ve been called Darren, Derek and, rather bizarrely, Simon in my time and while I have never threatened to thump someone for it, it can be annoying.

Porto manager Julen Lopetegui doesn’t have that filter though and he almost gave Benfica boss Jorge Jesus an awful hiding after the latter pretended to forget his name at a pre-match press conference.

Jesus referred to Lopetegui as Lotepegui – enough to send anyone into a fury, right?

The pair met on the pitch at the final whistle of the 0-0 stalemate in the Primeira Liga last night and a few quiet words in the ear very nearly turned into a few quiet digs to the nose as both men had to be separated by their respective coaches.

We have to be honest, we’re kind of on Jesus’ side of this because the “fake name forgetting” trick is a genius mind game. Mourinho will be raging he didn’t think of it first.

H/t to TalkingBaws