Malmo boss Age Hareide in heated press conference before Celtic tie
Monday 24 August 2015 16:27, UK
Malmo boss Age Hareide has attacked the Scottish media and delivered a heated defence of his goalkeeper Johan Wiland's comments after the first leg of their Champions League qualifying tie against Celtic.
The Hoops won the first leg 3-2 with Wiland seemingly then accusing opposition players of behaving like "pigs" during the game in an interview to Swedish journalists.
"They are pigs, all of them, that's the way it is," goalkeeper Wiland told Swedish newspaper Kvallposten.
"You just have to try to stay cool and do what we have to do on the pitch. Leigh Griffiths, well, I don't know what to say, he behaved like a child, tugging shirts all the time."
However, ahead of the second leg in Sweden, Hareide says the comments have been mispronounced and taken out of context and he stood by his earlier remarks that Celtic would tire before the end of the match in Glasgow.
"Regarding the comments from our goalkeeper, if you travel abroad and if you are going to write about players from Sweden, Norway or Germany or Spain or France, you have to know the words," he said.
"You have to learn your words because to pronounce the word directly it would be because pig means gris in Svenska or to play, like a pig is like to play dirty so I would call it as Markus (Rosenberg) said, it was a tough game but it was not a dirty game.
"So whatever I say you have to know the pronunciation because a pig is something else in English than it is in Scandinavia so you have to have respect for other languages as well you know."
He added: "That is why I am upset of the press because you just translate things, put things in headlines then you get something out of it. We hadn't said it.
"It is like the goalkeeper and all the players, they can say what they want to say themselves, you know. But I stand that Celtic looked tired at the end of the game."
And he believes the headlines leading up to the game will have inspired his players.
"The only thing I want from the press is to tell the truth and then you have to have respect for the languages and the places you travel to, to pronounce things correctly. That's the only thing I'm asking for."
