Special one seeks Netminder

October 20 - 2006

Of course we wish Petr Cech a speedy recovery and a long life and all, but…he’s giving us a headache. Not directly, of course, but through his Portuguese proxy, Jose Mourinho.

Cech’s depressed skull fracture has given “The Special One” yet another soapbox to stand on. His views on violence in sport, emergency medical response coordination, and the temporal nature of life have all been aired in the past week, and now a new drama emerges: Chelsea’s quest to find a 3rd (or 1st) goalkeeper. According to Soccernet, Mourinho waxed poetically on the subject, saying,

‘What I know in this moment is that we have 50 agents calling us and, if they call us, they call the press.

‘So Fabien Barthez is a name. There are a lot of names in the air. What I know is that Carlo and Hilario are very good goalkeepers and it is not easy for somebody to come and play in this team.

‘Probably, what we have to try to get is a third goalkeeper and, of course, Fabien is not a preferred third goalkeeper. He is a high-profile goalkeeper.

‘I prefer to think that now we have Hilario and Carlo, they are first options and we need somebody to give us security and replace Petr Cech in the group of keepers. That is the profile of the goalkeeper we are looking for.’

The words themselves aren’t that bothersome: Chelsea need another keeper, they would prefer not to bring in a volatile personality like Barthez, they have confidence in Cudicini, etc. But, when we read the words, we can’t get Mourhino’s uber-annoying, ego-dripping, sleepy-sounding drawl out of our heads. We fucking swear, it’s killing us.

And just in case you don’t have the auditory image just right, here’s a guy who can help: