BARCELONA // Barcelona's directors were meeting today to decide whether to report Jose Mourinho to Uefa after the Real Madrid coach hit out at the club and their coach, Pep Guardiola, following the Catalan club's 2-0 Champions League semi-final victory.
Barcelona's legal team was analysing Mourinho's press conference from last night, when the Portuguese coach said Guardiola should feel "ashamed" if his club goes on to win the trophy.
Lionel Messi scored both goals in Barcelona's first-leg win after the Real defender Pepe was sent off just after the hour mark.
Mourinho was then sent off for protesting that decision before suggesting Uefa was friendly to Barcelona while team sponsor Unicef may influence decisions. Those comments were part of the decision to review, according to the Spanish champions.
"Josep Guardiola is a fantastic football coach, but he has won one Champions League which would embarrass me after the scandalous goings-on at Stamford Bridge, and this year if he wins it again it will be after the scandalous goings-on at the Bernabeu," were Mourinho's words under Barcelona review.
"I don't know if it's the Unicef publicity or the friendship of [Angel] Villar at Uefa, where he is vice-president. I don't know if it's because they are so nice, but they have got great power. The rest of us have no chance."
Mourinho's reference to Stamford Bridge related to the 2009 Champions League semi-final between Barcelona and Chelsea, which Barcelona won on away goals after Chelsea felt it had been denied several penalties.
On Wednesday night, Pepe's red card left a Mourinho-coached team with 10 men against Barcelona for the fifth straight game stretching to Inter Milan's semi-final return-leg last season.
Guardiola refused to comment on Mourinho's rants, a day after the Barcelona coach launched a tirade of expletives against his Real counterpart following previous taunts.
Madrid-based newspapers Marca and AS both picked up Mourinho's most used words of the post-match news conference - "Why?" - for their front covers on Thursday, while Barcelona-based El Mundo Deportivo and Sport focused on Messi's heroics with the latter playing off one of Guardiola's expletives to toast the Argentine's performance.
"It's always the same - even before the sending off they didn't attack since they know they are at home and they can still go to the Camp Nou," Gerard Pique, the Barcelona defender, said. "In the end, when you play with fire you end up getting burnt and that's what happened with Real Madrid. If it happens once you can say it's by chance but it's not the first time it happens."
The classic Spanish rivals play the second leg on Tuesday in what will be the fourth meeting between them in 18 days. Tensions have slowly been raised with each game and the questionable red card for Pepe increased them further.
"Whenever you play against Barca, whenever you touch them, they are on the floor crying like a baby," the Real striker Emmanuel Adebayor said. "Barcelona is a fantastic club, they play fantastic football, but they have to stop that."
