Jose Mourinho imparted to John Terry one of football’s somewhat obscure regulations, illustrating his meticulous attention to the minutest details.
The iconic former captain of Chelsea experienced two tenures under Mourinho, clinching three Premier League titles.
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The initial pair was secured consecutively between 2004 and 2006, with the third attained in the 2014/15 season upon Mourinho’s return to Stamford Bridge.
During this latter period, Mourinho disclosed a relatively unknown rule to Terry that could be strategically exploited by their team.
In situations where Mourinho’s side was leading 1-0 in a closely contested match, he directed Terry and his central defensive partner, Gary Cahill, to collide with each other and feign injury.
Terry asserted that a particular referee was unaware that the regulation stipulated that both players could not leave the field in the event of a collision.
“Just to win. Didn’t care about anything else, he did anything to get an edge,” Terry said on beIN Sports.
“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 Cahill 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’.
“Mourinho was so far ahead with those little bits and you’re talking small margins and the best managers find those little margins. Incredible.”
Mourinho’s approach has often faced severe criticism, with frequent accusations of employing negative tactics and resorting to “parking the bus” throughout his coaching career.
Nevertheless, Terry contradicts these assertions and contends that Mourinho actually favored a more attack-oriented style, encouraging his team to score freely on certain occasions.
He added: “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.”
