John Terry has revealed how the Chelsea squad reacted to Jose Mourinho’s “Special One” press conference.
Mourinho famously introduced himself to the assembled press at Stamford Bridge back in 2004 by asking to be referred to as the “Special One” after guiding Porto to Champions League glory.
Now, 15 years on, Mourinho is back in football as the new head coach of Tottenham after succeeding Mauricio Pochettino who was sacked on Tuesday night.
Mourinho was himself sacked by Manchester United in December, and has turned down a number of managerial opportunities in China, Spain and Portugal since leaving Old Trafford.
The Portuguese takes over a Spurs side that are without a win in their past five Premier League games and have slipped to 14th in the table, 20 points behind leaders Liverpool after just 12 matches.
And Terry, who had two spells working under Mourinho at Chelsea, has opened up on how the Blues’ dressing room reacted to their old boss' first press conference in England.
“All the players had watched his first (“Special One”) press conference and were texting each other saying: ‘We could be in for it here’,” the former Chelsea captain told the Athletic.
Before Terry went on to explain what Spurs' players will be doing under Mourinho in his first week at the club.
“But when I met him for the first time, it was the complete opposite,” the current Aston Villa assistant added.
“He just wanted to get all the players onside. He called me and Frank Lampard in to talk individually, then got the whole group together.
“He then put on a full, detailed slideshow of how he wanted things, how he wanted us to be around the place, what he expected from us individually and collectively. He had the first month’s schedule already written up for everybody ‘so you can tell your wife, tell your kids and plan’.
“But if you broke it down, he knew what we were doing over the next three months from a footballing point of view.”
