O’Neill still hasn’t forgiven Mourinho for Seville

It’s 12 years and almost seven months since that night in Seville, but Martin O’Neill is still holding on to what could have been.

Celtic went on a memorable trip in the UEFA Cup in 2003, beating teams like Liverpool, Stuttgart and Blackburn along the way to reaching the final.

They met a Porto side managed by Jose Mourinho as 80,000 fans made the trip to Seville to cheer on O’Neill’s Bhoys.

Henrik Larsson scored twice but it wasn’t enough as Celtic fell to Mourinho’s side in extra time in a 3-2 defeat.

O’Neill however, believes other factors prevented his side winning on the night – including the antics of Mourinho on the touchline including the Portuguese man ordering ball boys to take their time.

Speaking to Plzsoccer, O’Neill said although he is aggrieved, he still respects what he’s achieved in his career:

We got beat and Larsson was fantastic, but we should’ve won.

He’s been an exceptional manager, although I’ve never forgiven him for Porto and 2003, but he will come through because he’s a splendid manager.

Having never watched the game back, O’Neill admitted he stumbled across it for the first time last summer when he was in an Italian hotel.

I watched it when goalkeeper Vitor Baia goes down and he spent about 12 minutes down there for a sore shin.

I thought there was going to be a helicopter coming to take him to hospital for that ‘severe’ injury he had.

He had at least four doctors looking at him when there was absolutely nothing wrong with him, and that time-wasting just galled me more than anything else.