José Semedo: Sheffield Wednesday’s cult hero on face masks, a chat with Carlos and his biggest Owls regret

November 17, 2012 was a day that Sheffield Wednesday’s cult hero, José Semedo, will never forget, and he still laughs about it today as he remembers walking out at the City Ground to a sea of face masks sporting his image.

Almost seven years later, Semedo is still playing at the age of 35, doing his thing for Vitória de Setúbal in the Portuguese Primeira Liga, but he knows where his heart will always be, even if he still holds a level of sadness for the way that his time with the Owls came to an end.

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He said, “One of the things that I most regret, something that hurts me the most, is that I could never say ‘See you later’ to the fans.

“All of my renewals at Wednesday were done in the summer, I never renewed it before the season finished. I don’t know why, it’s just the way it was. Before I left the club that season I thought it would happen the same. It didn’t happen that way – the club had other thoughts – so I couldn’t walk around the pitch and thank all of them. They were fantastic for me and I’d liked to have thanked them for what they did in my life.”

He holds no grudge though, and after admitting that he still follows Wednesday every week, keeping up to date with the team and their results, and revealed that he spoke to former boss, Carlos Carvalhal, about what went wrong after he and another captain, Glenn Loovens, moved on.

The Portuguese said, “I saw Mr. Carlos Carvalhal here, and I was asking to him what happened, because it was so organised for us to go to the Premier League, and he said, ‘You know, one of the toughest things that happened was the loss of you and Glenn Loovens. I don’t think it was realised until you were gone’.”

And his thoughts?

“I believe there’s a lack of leaders there now, and a lack of ambition. I think it’s a combination of both. During my time there we went some times in the season that were tough, and my advice was always that you should never go home after a game thinking that you could have done more – always give your best. The worst thing to regret is that you could’ve given more.

“Before you had five or six leaders in the team, with the ambition to win, to not just be one more football player in the club. When I signed for Wednesday I said that I can’t just be one more player. I could’ve signed for Barnsley – my sister lived there and I could’ve been closer to her – but I knew that Wednesday was exactly where I wanted to be, and I wanted to be part of something there.”

He was part of something. Semedo played a huge role in helping the Owls secure promotion out of League One, and then also featured in their push for the Premier League, but one of his most memorable days was that one at Nottingham Forest away…

“I knew there was a Semedo Day,” he explains. “I found out on the Friday, but I didn’t really understand it. I thought it was just singing my name a bit more than usual or something…

“I was captain, so I came out first, and then I saw the stand… Covered in my face! I stopped and I said, ‘It’s me over there!’, but I was in shock. I was just thinking, ‘They all look like my face!’. I couldn’t believe it. There was masks and Portugal flags, and I can never thank those fans enough. It touched me a lot.”

Now, as he watches from afar, the midfield man has some advice for his former club as they look to get themselves back on track for the top-flight, and it requires a bit of togetherness from everyone involved.

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“For me, I’m a firm believer that a football team is more than the 11 players out there. It’s more than that. For you to be a successful team you need to have a combination from the chairman, the directors, the kitmen, everything, and everyone has to be on the same path…

“As my time at the club was coming to an end, I knew what I couldn’t give to the team, because I know what I’m made of, but I travelled all the time with the club – playing or not playing – and during training I made it difficult every single day for those who were playing. I wouldn’t let them go down, because I was always there to tell them to make sure they keep their ambition to be a success.

“The season you let your ambition go down is the season that other players will run over you, so this spirit is needed. You have a couple of successful seasons and you think ‘The Championship is easier, we’re going to get into the playoffs’, and that’s dangerous.”

That kind of mentality would be welcomed, no doubt, by Wednesdayites across the city, and the truth is, they may not have seen the last of Semedo in the dugout at Hillsborough…

“I truly believe that I will be back at some stage in my life,” he says. “I’m taking my coaching badges already, I want to go into coaching, and one of my dreams is to manage Sheffield Wednesday.”

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