Joe Cole has revealed the greatest ever football team he has seen and explained why they ‘blew him away’.
The former England star has also named what he believes to be the greatest club side of his career.
Cole, 43, was speaking to Alzheimer’s Society about teamwork and reflecting on a career which saw him lift three Premier League titles and play 735 games for club and country.
He is mostly associated with Chelsea but found time to play for West Ham, Liverpool, Lille, Aston Villa, Coventry City, Tampa Bay Rowdies, and even 11th-tier Belstone in an itinerant career spanning almost a quarter of a century.
The greatest team he saw? ‘The best club side ever assembled has got to be the Barcelona team,’ said Cole. ‘Xavi, (Andre) Iniesta, (Lionel) Messi, Ronaldinho, (Samuel) Eto’o, (Thierry) Henry, the names fall off the tongue.
‘More so than the great players was the togetherness and the vision they had. They changed the game. I would have loved to have played for them. That would have been a real privilege.
Joe Cole says Barcelona are the best team he saw, and Chelsea are the best he played for
The 43-year-old won three Premier League titles in a trophy-laden stint with the Blues
‘Watching them play against Manchester United in the Champions League final, obviously we [Chelsea] got beat in the semi-final, it was bittersweet.
‘But as a fan of football, and knowing how good that Manchester United side was as well, watching that performance… it’s not often you watch a game of football and are just blown away. It was beautiful.’
Unsurprisingly, Cole named Chelsea as the best team he played in. He won all three of his Premier League titles there, two FA Cups, a League Cup and a Community Shield, and reached the 2008 Champions League final, where they lost to Manchester United.
He said: ‘The best side that I’ve been part of is the Chelsea side. We knew what we were and we knew how to win games.
‘We would stick together and fight for each other. There was a collective will to win from the whole team, which was pretty remarkable.
‘We won lots of trophies. I think that’s what your Carlo Ancelotti and (Jose) Mourinho’s have got, they figure out how to do that with players, and then they can do it consistently and repeat that process in different countries. But for me, a real honour to play in that Chelsea side.
‘Beating dementia isn’t the task of one person or one profession. It will take all of us. It will take a team, it will take a society to beat dementia.’
