Talking to Roberto Scarpini of Italian TV ‘Inter Channel’, Inter Milan’s coach Jose Mourinho said yesterday that if it was him, he will “give the Ballon d’Or (Golden Ball) to (Barcelona midfield maestro) Xavi Hernadez” although he predicted that “they will not even grant him the Silver or Bronze award”.

“You don’t have to understand football to know that he is a phenomenon. He is not an individualistic player and neither does he score goals (regularly) for his team but he plays 60 matches a season and is (to me) the best of the 45 players in that list. He never rests, plays all the minutes, and trains at the age of 30 as if he was 17 years old, the age when I met him while I was with Barcelona,” adding further that Xavi is the kind of player that tends to be overlooked, “Socially, he doesn’t involve himself in the type of events that can promote his name in the eye of the media. He has won everything, absolutely everything and the only thing that remains for him to conquer is the World Cup with the Spanish selection. I think it would be a crime if an absolutely fantastic player like him were to end his career, in three or four years time, without being given the recognition he deserves,” Mourinho insisted.

When asked about Zlatan’s agent, Mino Raiola statements a few days ago that the Swedish player could return to the Serie A, and more specifically back to Inter, Mourinho said he is baffled by it: “I don’t know what his intentions were with those statements. Ibra is already a part of Inter’s history and I wish him a lot of successes with Barcelona”.

Queried on the player’s injury that could prevent him from playing on Tuesday, Mourinho just shrugged at the ‘irony’. “What? Ibra is not well enough to play against inter?” he replied with a sarcastic tone, concluding the interview.