03/11/2025
Joe Cole recalls José Mourinho’s words after Chelsea’s 1–2 loss to FC Barcelona in the Champions League round of 16 in February 2005:
“It was your first big test as a team and you failed. You went to the Camp Nou and hid. Cowards! Zero courage… He tore into Petr Čech, John Terry, Lampard… He told them that Eto’o and Deco had annihilated them. José [Mourinho] was cursing in perfect English: ‘Bloody idiots! You haven’t got the guts!’ he said. He did it with anger, with contempt, with disappointment.
It felt like a room full of people condemned to death waiting for their turn. I thought, ‘He’s giving each of them 20 seconds. Wait until it’s my turn — they’ll have to pick me up off the floor.’ When he came over to me and Duffa [Damien Duff], he told us we’d played well, that we’d tried. I felt like a blindfolded man before a firing squad, saved by a last-minute reprieve.”
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