‘only one team deserved to win’

Fenerbahce manager Jose Mourinho says his side deserved to win after they were knocked out of the Europa League on penalties at Rangers.

Goals in each half of the 90 minutes from Sebastian Szymanski had wiped out Rangers’ 3-1 first-leg lead and forced extra time.

Jack Butland then saved two spot kicks as the home side won through to a quarter-final against Athletic Bilbao.

“We were the best team on the pitch by far!”

A “sad” Jose Mourinho reacts to Fenerbahce’s Europa League exit…

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Mourinho felt afterwards that his current side were the only team who should have won.

He said: “We played a fantastic match. Only one team played, only one team scored, only one team deserved to score more, only one team deserved to win.

“Only one team [should have] had three penalties that if you don’t get three, you get two. If you don’t get two, you get one. If you don’t get one out of three, everything is strange.

“But it’s also strange the way we were knocked out of the Champions League with a VAR penalty on minute 120.”

Mourinho went on to reference previous controversy, as he brought up his Roma side’s 2023 Europa League final defeat by Sevilla, after which he received a four-match ban for his criticism of English referee Anthony Taylor.

Mourinho said: “The only thing that is still in the back of my mind is if everything that happened to my team this season in Europe, if it has something to do with the Budapest final.

“I want to think it has nothing to do with it, it’s just bad luck, and nothing has to do with that. I want to think that way.”

Interim Rangers manager Barry Ferguson praised his side for keeping their heads despite the loss on the night.

He said: “I actually thought we played well. The two goals we could have done better but the one thing I have to say, and it’s been levelled against the players, they showed character.

“It’s easy to feel sorry for yourself but they kept going. And obviously you get into the penalty situation and I thought we handled that very well.

“The main objective was to make sure I got this club into the last eight and that’s something we have done.

“Don’t underestimate what happened there. We came up against a top team. I knew after last Thursday that this was in no way a done deal.

“They kept driving on and we showed a bit of mettle.

“I said to them, maybe some people will now start to think these guys have got something about them. And that was one of my objectives when I came in to take the job.”