By the 2010 World Cup, England had made failing to meet expectations something of an art form.
With the Golden Generation unable to make it past the last-eight of a major international tournament, Fabio Capello was the man in the dugout for the Three Lions’ tilt in South Africa that summer.
The Italian was known as a strict disciplinarian, but even he couldn’t turn around England’s fortunes, as a last-16 exit to Germany beckoned.
Ashley and Joe Cole on their 2010 downtime
Ashley Cole and Joe Cole were both members of Capello’s squad 16 years ago, so was there any truth in the subsequent chatter that players were bored that summer, due to the former Juventus boss’s strict guidelines?
“I was playing Call Of Duty – I was never bored, me!” Ashley tells FourFourTwo, with his former team-mate agreeing.
“I loved watching the other games and the food was great – we had all the things we needed,” the former West Ham man adds.
“Snooker, table tennis…,” recalls Ashley, with Joe adding that there was a holiday camp feel at the tournament: “It was like a youth club for grown men! Personally, I had a great time.”
There was, however, one bucket list item that Capello – perhaps understandably – did not allow the two Coles to do, in swimming with sharks between matches.
“Yeah, I was fuming!” says Joe, with Ashley admitting that he was also ready to enter the water with great whites.
“Yeah! Sharks, we have this kind of relationship – I don’t like getting in the sea because I’m scared of them, but I plucked up the guts to go and jump in a cage, then it got stopped!”
While for many people of a certain disposition – Capello included – entering the water with one of the planet’s greatest predators simply isn’t a risk worth taking, Joe insists the odds of making it out of the water would have been in his favour.
“You’ve got to be really unlucky to miss a game,” he laughs. “Imagine the breaking news: ‘Ashley Cole is missing the game, he’s been thumped by a shark.’
“We went on a safari, so we just thought, ‘Day off, we’re in South Africa, I might never come back here again.’ We tried to get it all sorted, then Fabio kiboshed it, he said no. I thought, ‘But it’s harmless… ish?’”
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