Manchester City manager Enzo Maresca was asked about the confrontations with Porto during their Champions League game
Enzo Maresca
Enzo Maresca
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Enzo Maresca suggested that Porto staff were driving the aggression in a feisty Champions League game as he played down Manchester City involvement. The Blues were caught in a number of confrontations during their 2-0 win, with three of their players booked and Ruben Dias appearing to push Porto coach Francesco Farioli at half-time with more tempers spilling over in the tunnel.
Porto had been incensed moments before the break that Marc Guehi was not sent off after his elbow seemingly struck Gabri Veiga, although replays backed up the referee's decision. There was also shouts for Josko Gvardiol to get a second yellow card, and he was withdrawn almost immediately after the second half started.
Maresca was one of the first to go down the tunnel at half-time and claimed that he had not seen anything that went on behind him. However, when asked about Dias' actions he contrasted the behaviour of the City and Porto benches to make his point.
"You can ask what you want but how many times you see me or my bench or the guys that work with me stand up on the bench? Zero, for 95 minutes," he said. "How many times you see their bench? So..."
Porto boss Farioli thought that the referee could have acted differently on a number of occasions, but did not want to focus on that in his press conference after the game.
He said: "These things at this level could make the difference, but we know against who we played. We competed quite well in my opinion, and now we have to switch the focus for the league game that we're going to play at the weekend and we have to be ready for that."
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Enzo Fernandez has signed for Manchester City(Man City)