Inter Milan’s Mourinho can give as good as he takes

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Defending champion Inter Milan is in first place in the Italian league, six points ahead of city rival AC Milan.

That has not stopped the media from climbing all over Portuguese Coach Jose Mourinho, bewailing the team’s recent loss of form and claiming that poor performances, plus a few injuries, represented a crisis at the club.

Mourinho, being Mourinho, has responded in typical fashion.

‘I can’t sleep at night for the crisis we are going through,’ he said, the sarcasm dripping heavily. ‘How can I handle it when we won the Super Cup, are top of the Serie A table, in the Coppa Italia semifinal and in the second round of the Champions League?’

Reporters in Milan should know better by now than to stir the world’s highest-paid soccer coach, who is paid a reported $12.5 million a year by Inter, plus several million more from sponsors.

-- Grahame L. Jones