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Joe Cole was at the centre of England’s hopes during the 2006 World Cup.
The playmaker went to the tournament with a freshly minted Premier League winners’ medal after he helped Chelsea seal their second consecutive league title, with Cole earning a place in the PFA Team of the Year.
Boss Sven-Goran Eriksson selected Cole for every match in Germany, with a spectacular goal against Sweden being the midfielder’s personal high-point before England’s tournament ended in a familiar fashion when they crashed out to Portugal on penalties in the quarter-finals.
Joe Cole on England’s World Cup 2006 campaign
“The 2006 World Cup was when I played most,” Cole tells FourFourTwo when asked which was his favourite international tournament as a player. "I played every game, scored a really good goal [against Sweden] and I loved it.
“They’re all good memories, but moments changed games at important times. If we could have come through those moments or won a penalty shootout, we could have gone even further. The sliding doors didn’t go for us. A different pass here, a better refereeing decision there.”
Cole was again named in the starting XI for the quarter-final against Portugal, but was sacrificed following Wayne Rooney’s red card shortly after the hour mark.
“Yeah, it was frustrating,” he admits. “I was probably playing at my peak around that time of my career. I was feeling really good in that game, playing against Miguel, the right-back, thinking, ‘I’m just getting the better of him here.’
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“We were coming into it, then the sending-off happened, and when you’re the type of player I was, I knew that substitution was coming, because we needed to consolidate.
“I just thought, ‘Please get us through, don’t let this be the end.’ The boys did unbelievably well to keep it at 0-0, but it wasn’t meant to be.”
Cole was also a part of Eriksson’s 2002 squad, another tournament in which the Three Lions of that era were unable to get past the same quarter-final ceiling.
“I only came off the bench once in that tournament, but I remember us going 1-0 up against Brazil,” he recalls. “ Michael Owen ended up with a hamstring injury and I thought that might have been the time to take him off and get some more legs in midfield because of the heat.
“We weren’t having a lot of domination and Michael had done his job, he’d put the ball in the net. I think if he had the time again, maybe Sven would have done that.
“But it was a great Brazil team we lost to – one of the all-time great teams.”
Could It Be Coming Home? with Joe Cole and Ashley Cole is brought to you by Carling, official sponsor of the Emirates FA Cup and Adobe Women’s FA Cup. Watch the show on YouTube and Spotify, or listen to it wherever you get your podcasts
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