I was half-joking when I said it to Rob Hughes.
That the Champions League was about whether my Brazilians could beat your Brazilians.
Must have been 12 years ago.
However, I gradually came to believe that if you don’t have Brazilians, you’re not serious.
After watching the Champions League closely every season, I thought I’d seen everything.
But Wednesday night surprised me.
Paris Saint-German were far better than I expected – and Chelsea far worse.
Fabregas was pants, Oscar was pitiful, Ramires divides Blues fans anyway, and the usually omnipotent Matic was well off the pace.
Mourinho explained it by saying his team couldn’t handle the pressure.
I think Chelsea went out because they didn’t play football.
Diego Costa was the main culprit.
It’s true that Costa plays his football abrasively but on this occasion he didn’t try to play at all. When Costa wasn’t flat on his face on the turf, he spent his time looking for the man rather than the ball.
Even when he dribbled across the crowded box in 42 he was looking for contact rather than a shot, since he was never in complete control of the ball.
As Costa ran diagonally away from the goal, he was waiting and looking for a boot to fall over. And eventually he got the contact he wanted when Cavani kicked him. In any other game, in any normal football match, that was a stonewall penalty. But Dutch ref Kuipers didn’t give it.
I thought Mourinho reverted to type by rewinding the clock 12 years and turning league leaders Chelsea into Porto, who were obnoxious, spiky underdogs taking on the big boys like Manchester United.
Porto were masters of all the dark arts, able to kick, obstruct disrupt and distract, then nick the game. They knew how to win ugly.
Zlatan Ibrahimovic was unluckily sent off for a 50-50 challenge with Oscar that was either a free-kick or a yellow card.
But four Chelsea played threw their hands up in the air and eight surrounded referee Bjorn Kuipers. Seeing this, Diego Costa ran 60 yards to join in and when the red card came out in 31, he clapped his hands.
It seemed as if Chelsea must win now.
Not so. The Paris midfield balanced the terrific running power of Verratti and Matuidi with the canny movement of Thiago Motta, and some thoughtful probing by Javier Pastore, the left-footed Argentinian who came in for injured Brazilian winger Lucas Moura.
Laurent Blanc’s PSG, whose whole back four was Brazilian, had the bottle to stay in the game with 10 men, so they were able to come from behind twice.
Skipper Thiago Silva and Chelsea reject David Luiz produced two of the most stupendous headers we’ve ever seen in the Champions League.
When Thiago Silva handled, and Eden Hazard converted with huge composure in extra time, Chelsea celebrated as if they’d won.
But, astonishingly, when they were winning 3-2 on aggregate in extra time, they were shitting themselves.
Why? Because they knew how badly they were playing and realised they could still get knocked out by 10 men.
I’d never seen Chelsea with so little belief.
PSG played the game of their lives, obliging Mourinho to admit that, “Collectively, they were better than us.”