In total, Jose Mourinho was in charge of Chelsea for 321 games across two different spells at Stamford Bridge.
Mourinho won eight major trophies with Chelsea including three Premier League titles and the Portuguese manager will always be renowned as one of the best ever in west London.
Of course, Mourinho’s managerial career has now taken him to Turkey with Fenerbahce after managing a few other Premier League sides – but he’s never quite been able to replicate his reputation as the ‘special one’ elsewhere.
Along with his emergence at FC Porto, Mourinho seemingly spent the best years of his managerial career with Chelsea, although, there’s still one moment from his time in west London that still bothers him to this day.
Jose Mourinho still thinks about Luis Garcia’s ‘ghost goal’ against Chelsea
Last year, Mourinho spoke with TNT Sports and answered 20 questions with Rio Ferdinand, ones that probed various talking points of his career.
And midway through the chat, Mourinho was asked about any footballing moment that he still thinks about today.
Without much hesitation, Mourinho then recalled a moment from 2005 at Chelsea, when the Blues were knocked out of the Champions League by Liverpool.
Mourinho replied: “Champions League semi-final loss with a goal that was not a goal.”
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The former Chelsea boss was referring to Luis Garcia’s famous ‘ghost goal’ that didn’t actually go over the line in their Champions League semi-final second leg.
At the time, Mourinho went on an extraordinary rant about the linesman’s decision, saying he surely needed to be “100% certain” that the ball had crossed the line in order to award the goal.
And twenty years later, the moment is still weighing on the Portuguese manager’s mind.
Luis Garcia has replied to Jose Mourinho’s complaints
Interestingly, almost ten years after the incident, Garcia shared an interesting reply to all the controversy around the goal when speaking to The Guardian.
The former Liverpool player suggested that Chelsea would have been in trouble either way, given that Petr Cech had flattened Milan Baros just before the goal went in.
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Garcia said: “We can say: ‘If this’, ‘if that’. But the goal was given. If not it would have been a penalty and a red card, so we don’t know if it was better what happened or not.”
It would be interesting to hear Mourinho’s response to that verdict, one he doesn’t seem too likely to agree with.
Of course, Chelsea fans today will just be longing for their side to simply reach a level where they can start competing in Champions League semi-finals once again.
