Why Jose Mourinho wrote ’33’ before 2005 semi-final at Anfield – Liverpool FC
Jose Mourinho’s management style is as unique as it comes, and he pulled out a doozy when Chelsea arrived at Anfield for their Champions League semi-final in 2005, highlighting the number ’33’.
Liverpool’s 1-0 win over Chelsea on May 3, 2005, set them on course to lift the club’s fifth European Cup, with a feral Anfield producing its greatest-ever atmosphere.
Mourinho’s side arrived as the newly-crowned Premier League champions and favourites to head to Istanbul later that month, but Anfield had the Blues rattled from the off.
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It was a deafening cauldron long before the first whistle sounded and it triggered a reaction in Mourinho, as revealed to This Is Anfield by Spanish journalist Guillem Balague, author of ‘A season on the brink: A portrait of Rafa Benitez’s Liverpool‘.
“Jose Mourinho, when he came on while the team was warming up, realised that the electricity there was magic, that something special was happening, that the players were being affected by it,” Balague explained.
“So he walked back into the changing room and on the blackboard he put ’33’. He stood by the blackboard as everybody passed, getting ready for the game.
“And when silence was made. He said, ‘This is the point difference with Liverpool in the league. So you should not be scared.”
The Reds were 33 points behind Chelsea in the league before kickoff, a disparity so vast it amounted to 56.8 percent of Rafa Benitez’s total points tally after 36 games (58) that season.
Mourinho sought to highlight the gulf between the two teams in another competition, forgetting entirely that Liverpool on a European night is another beast entirely – especially at Anfield.
At that moment, Liverpool supporters had rattled the Portuguese into clutching at something his players could turn into confidence before re-emerging for kickoff.
The Kop, however, would suck Luis Garcia’s shot over the line in the fourth minute as the Reds put one foot in the final, denting Mourinho’s hopes almost immediately.
It is a night fondly remembered as one of the best atmospheres on home soil, fitting for the first European Cup semi-final at Anfield since 1985. You never had a chance, Jose!
