Joe Cole names Barcelona as greatest team he’s seen and Chelsea as the best he played for, as he fronts Alzheimer’s Society campaign

Former England international Joe Cole has named the Barcelona side from the mid-2000s as the greatest team he has ever seen, while saying Chelsea was the best team he played for, as he campaigns with the Alzheimer's Society on teamwork and dementia awareness. Cole, 43, lifted three Premier League titles with Chelsea and finished with 735 appearances for club and country across a career that included stints at West Ham, Liverpool, Lille, Aston Villa, Coventry City, Tampa Bay Rowdies and even Belstone.

"The best club side ever assembled has got to be the Barcelona team," Cole said. "Xavi, (André) Iniesta, (Lionel) Messi, Ronaldinho, (Samuel) Eto'o, (Thierry) Henry—the names fall off the tongue. More so than the great players was the togetherness and the vision they had. They changed the game. I would have loved to have played for them. That would have been a real privilege."

"Watching them play against Manchester United in the Champions League final, obviously we [Chelsea] got beat in the semi-final, it was bittersweet. But as a fan of football, and knowing how good that Manchester United side was as well, watching that performance... it's not often you watch a game of football and are just blown away. It was beautiful."

Cole also named Chelsea as the best side he played for, saying the group "knew what we were and we knew how to win games." He described a strong sense of unity: "We would stick together and fight for each other. There was a collective will to win from the whole team, which was pretty remarkable." He noted Chelsea’s trophy haul during his time there, including three Premier League titles, two FA Cups, a League Cup and a Community Shield, and he recalled reaching the 2008 Champions League final, where they were defeated by Manchester United. He attributed that success in part to managers Carlo Ancelotti and Jose Mourinho, who he said understood how to build a repeatable winning culture across different leagues and countries.

In reflecting on his career and the broader mission, Cole emphasized that beating dementia will require more than one person or profession. "Beating dementia isn't the task of one person or one profession. It will take all of us. It will take a team, it will take a society to beat dementia."