The Real Madrid manager posted on 1 October that the comments pinned on him over the Portugal camp fallout are fabricated.

“FN… Too much news about my comments on CR/FPF/National coach case. Fake news. No comments,” he wrote on his Instagram story, as reported by Get Spanish Football News.

Mourinho’s name had been attached to a string of lines in Brazilian coverage, including that Ronaldo needs to tame his ego and that “the body is no longer the same.” The portrait, published by outlets including Notícias ao Minuto Brasil, presented Mourinho as finally breaking cover on an awkward subject. He now says the whole paragraph was invented.

What Mourinho actually said he feels

Alongside the denial, the Real Madrid coach made clear he did not want to be in the story at all, citing his respect for the Portuguese Football Federation, for national team manager Jorge Jesus and for Ronaldo himself, according to Goal.

Read also: Pogacar crash update: “I’m doing well; I’m getting better with every day after the crash”

Mourinho coached Ronaldo at Real Madrid between 2010 and 2013, which is why Brazilian and Portuguese outlets reached for him in the first place when the camp row broke. His Instagram story reads as an attempt to shut that door before the quotes travel any further.

Why the denial matters this week

The row that pulled Mourinho’s name in came to a head on Wednesday 30 September, when the 41-year-old Ronaldo walked out of Portugal’s national team camp. He had been an unused substitute in the Nations League win in Norway days earlier, and left camp after Jorge Jesus signalled he would not start the following night’s match against Denmark. His exit was confirmed on Yahoo Sports, which also reported Ronaldo’s frustration with Jesus’s public handling of the benching.

Jesus has since downplayed the episode, saying there was “no incident whatsoever” and acknowledging only that Ronaldo was unhappy at being left on the bench.

That left a vacuum in the story, and Brazilian outlets filled it with the paragraph attributed to Mourinho. Hours later he was back on social media calling it fiction. For now, the Instagram story is the only on-record word from the Real Madrid coach on the Portugal camp fallout.

Read also: Liverpool quietly signed potential Virgil van Dijk heir for just £1m

Read also: Manchester City chairman acquired diplomatic immunity