Jose smuggled in

[BLUENUT]

Copied from BAWA:

Not sure how true it is but you gotta smile:

Mourinho, a ban, an earpiece and a laundry basket . . .

The Chelsea manager took a starring role in a Champions League version of ?Carry on Coaching?, it is claimed

Matt Dickinson

There are many captivating images of Jos? Mourinho ? sliding on his knees in celebration, hurling a championship medal into the crowd, standing moodily in a designer coat ? but perhaps none as striking as the idea of the Chelsea manager cramming himself into a kit trolley so that he could be smuggled out of Stamford Bridge.

But that is precisely what it is alleged did happen in defiance of a touchline ban from Uefa. The Times has been told that, in an episode from a Carry On film rather than a Champions League quarter-final, one of the world?s leading managers apparently hid in the Stamford Bridge dressing-room and then fled the scene in a laundry skip to evade Uefa officials.

Mourinho would have been risking unprecedented sanctions if he had been caught and his apparent willingness to flout the laws so audaciously is perhaps the most compelling evidence yet of his win-at-all-costs mentality.

His extraordinary antics allegedly came in the quarter-final two years ago against Bayern Munich and the time lapse means that the European governing body will almost certainly choose to turn a blind eye unless it receives a formal complaint. ?It was a crisis episode, as you remember, that everyone is better off forgetting,? William Gaillard, Uefa?s director of communications, said yesterday. ?We simply wish all four clubs in the semi-finals the best of luck.?

Related Links

* Mourinho?s arch enemy

Dressing-room sources have confirmed the allegations, although it is a sign of the loyalty to Mourinho that the full details have taken so long to emerge. As one insider said: ?It was just kept in-house, sort of thing.?

Mourinho had been handed his two-match ban after the explosive meetings with Barcelona in the previous round and his allegations that Anders Frisk, the referee, had been influenced by Frank Rijkaard, the Barcelona coach, during the interval. Mourinho was branded an ?enemy of football? by one Uefa official but, convinced that he had been unjustly punished, it is said he set about defying the ban on him contacting his players or backroom staff in the two matches against Bayern.

Presumably, he believed that direct communication with his team could give them the edge and not even his harshest critic could question his powers of motivation and leadership.

The allegations make astonishing reading. For the first leg at Stamford Bridge, Mourinho arrived early enough to get in position. He watched the game on a television in the dressing-room and, during the first half, communicated to his staff in the dugout by radio or telephone. ?You can get mobile reception in the dressing-room,? the source said. ?It depends what network and in what room.?

At the time, television commentators spotted and commented on the fact that Rui Faria, the fitness coach, had a strange kink in his bobble hat and repeatedly scratched his ear. It was the sort of kink that could be caused by a wire and earpiece. ?It was so obvious, to keep playing with your ear like that,? the source said.

Suspicious of skulduggery going on under their noses, Uefa officials went down to the tunnel, but by then the players were back in the dressing-room and listening to a team talk from their manager.

One source claims that knowing that the listening device had been rumbled, Chelsea simply used more rudimentary communication in the second half. It was noted at the time that Silvinho Louro, the goalkeeping coach, made several trips back to the dressing-room. ?He?s a nervous spectator,? a source close to Mourinho joked at the time, but Louro kept coming back with bits of paper that were passed to the other coaches. Whatever the pieces of paper contained, they tended to coincide with substitutions.

Mourinho was not waiting for the players at the end of the match, which Chelsea won 4-2, because he had already allegedly clambered into one of the kit skips. He was wheeled out of the dressing-room by members of the backroom staff and, it is believed, back into the leisure club in the Chelsea Village hotel at the ground, where it had been reported that he spent the entire evening.

In a passable impression of Inspector Clouseau, Uefa?s hapless officials left none the wiser. Insiders claim Mourinho was so thrilled that he joked openly about his trip in the skip in front of his players at training the next morning.

In the second leg, at the Olympic Stadium in Munich, there was a greater risk of detection if he tried to enter the dressing-room. The sources allege that Mourinho went into the stands to watch but, apparently flustered by the close attention of a camera crew, he quickly departed for the team hotel.

The privacy might have been useful. The Timeshas been told that a speaker had been set up in the dressing-room so that he could talk to the players over the telephone at half-time. ?There was a massive speaker,? a source said. ?Jos? was at the hotel.? Uefa?s representatives had surpassed themselves yet again by approaching Faria to check if there was anything under his hat. There wasn?t.

In a recent biography to which Mourinho contributed, he boasted about how he overcame a touchline ban during his days at FC Porto by sending messages to his assistants from his seat in the stands via ?a small, sophisticated telecommunications device?. He even listed the precise instructions, which included: ?Tell Deco [the Porto midfield player] I?m p****d off, I want more!? and, ?Pressure on linesman, everybody.?

Chelsea said in a statement last night: ?The situation is very clear. Both matches were controlled by Uefa and they were more than satisfied on both nights that their ruling was intact, hence the statements that were issued by Uefa at the time and subsequently. The only reason to publish this so close to a big match is to serve an agenda that is intended to undermine our team.?

[Maksimov]

In Telegraph's article their source is a "dressing-room insider".

[RedRobMol]

if it is true, you have to take your bobble hat off to him!

EDIT: I have just noticed the witty quip under my avatar, who did that?

[Elliott]

[The Moos]

In a way I hope this is true and I would love JM even more because of it. The fact that we also won just maked things even sweeter.

One thing I noticed was that instead of saying that JM claimed Frisk had met with Rijkaard as the articles have done so far they now swithed to saying that JM claimed Rijkaard tried to influence Frisk.

[Maksimov]

EDIT: I have just noticed the witty quip under my avatar, who did that?

I'm not blaming anyone( ), but I think the name may start with an M, end in a D and there's probably an O somewhere in the middle.

[loz]

Pah I don't get credit for anything anymore!!!

[Maksimov]

Pah I don't get credit for anything anymore!!!

You? With your reputation?