João Palhinha criticizes whistles in Alvalade: “It’s more of the same...”

Whistling on the way back to Alvalade: “It didn’t mess with me, I remember perfectly when it went with João Mario, when I had already criticized this attitude – I didn’t even play in Benfica, I was in Fulham. It turns out to be more of the same, it's the reality of our football, by the way, it's the reality of the way people live football, many of them are very rational, but what's important to me is to have a calm conscience and I'm going to give everything for national selection regardless of stadiums, whether in the Dragon, in Alvalade. Nothing changes that it is always special to play here for me, I don’t forget the story I’ve lived here, regardless of the mentality and I’m very happy to go back to the selection and have won today.”

Absence of the World Cup2026: “I think we need to get the good stuff out, which I’m not so happy about. Of course I would have liked to have been to the World Cup, but I ended up enjoying more holidays with my family, spending time with my children and supporting the selection in another way, respecting the choices of the selectors.”

Benfica choice: “I am extremely happy to represent Benfica. What happened, I can’t talk, even because I am in the selection, but maximum respect always for Sporting.”

Sporting fans' hurt?: “I think people... in football we have rational and irrational fans, and for me, the rational ones will be the ones who remember that Palhinha stayed at the worst moment of the club and that did everything for the club. That's what I value. The irrational will just look at the fact that I am in Benfica and whistle, as it happened today.”

[News updated at 11:07 p.m.]