LONDON, Jan 20 — Jose Mourinho admitted yesterday that he once got round a two-match ban by hiding in a laundry basket so he could give a team-talk before a Champions League match.

Mourinho, sacked by Manchester United in December, told BeIN Sports how he skirted a touchline suspension on the eve of the 2005 quarter-final against Bayern Munich by getting the Chelsea kit man to help him stow away in the basket.

"I go to the dressing room during the day so I was there from midday and the game is seven o’clock. I just want to be in the dressing room when the players arrive,” the 55-year-old recalled.

"I went there and nobody see me. The problem was to leave after. And the kit man put me in the basket. It was a little bit open so I could breathe.

"But when he is taking it outside the dressing room, the Uefa guys were following and desperate to find me so he closed the box and I couldn’t breathe. When he opened the box, I was dying.” — AFP