John Terry has offered a fascinating insight into Jose Mourinho’s unrelenting desire to win and explained how he got one over match officials.
Mourinho, who completed the full set of European trophies with AS Roma last term, had his most successful spells at Chelsea. During his two stints at Stamford Bridge, the Blues won three Premier League titles with Terry lifting the trophy on each occasion.
The pragmatic style of football under ‘The Special One’ wasn’t to everyone’s taste however, with his streetwise side often going above and beyond to secure three points. And Terry, his on-field general has revealed how that attention to detail left at least one referee clutching for the rule book.
Appearing as a pundit on beIN Sports’ coverage of the World Cup in Qatar, Terry was asked about his old manager’s style and what he wanted most from his players. “Just to win. Didn’t care about anything else, he did anything to get an edge,” Terry explained.
“I remember, the rule was, if we were 1-0 up and the ball got delivered into the box…if two defenders went up together and both went down on the floor after, you didn’t have to go off the field of play.
“So last 10 or 15 minutes, he would sit me and Gary Chaill down and go: ‘when the ball comes in the box, make sure you both go down - bump into each other and both go down because you can’t both go off.
“We’d never heard of that rule ever. So ball comes over in the last 10 minutes, head it away, Gaz goes down and I think ‘I better go down’. So I dropped to the floor and the ref said ‘you two off the pitch’. I said ‘no that’s not the rule, ask the linesman’.”
Terry added: “Mourinho was so far ahead with those little bits and you’re talking small margins and the best managers find those little margins. Incredible.”
Some fans were quick to point out that his method didn’t always produce results, referencing a Champions League tie vs Paris Saint-Germain in 2015. On that occasion, Chelsea were drawing 1-1 in extra time, where the collision only allowed Thiago Silva to nod in a late winner from a corner.
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More often than not though, Mourinho’s results have spoken for themselves, even if some were not enamoured by the style. His reputation for ‘parking the bus’ has become legendary, but Terry insists that against a select few sides - including Tottenham - he would implore his charges to keep the handbrake off.
Terry said: “If we were two or three goals up at half time against certain teams - Spurs being one of them - he’d say ‘go and kill them, go and make them suffer today.”
