Former Chelsea star on fuming with Jose Mourinho and being baffled by Maurizio Sarri
Chelsea hero Gary Cahill has plenty of memories after playing nearly 300 games for the Blues, including being ‘fuming’ with Jose Mourinho and completely baffled by Maurizio Sarri.
The 38-year-old won two Premier League titles, the Champions League, two FA Cups and two Europa Leagues wit the Blues, turning out 290 times for them.
He played under a string of managers, including Antonio Conte, Andre Villas-Boas and Roberto Di Matteo, but Mourinho stood out, especially for a memorable mind game.
Cahill’s centre-back partner John Terry has recalled a story of when Mourinho told them to ‘f**k off’ and he would sign Raphael Varane and another defender to place them.
Asked for his memories of the event, Cahill told The Obi One podcast: ‘I was taken aback. I was shocked by it, to be fair it p***ed me off massively.
‘But you know what, that was him though wasn’t it? The mind games, he was clever with stuff like that.
‘He knew he’d get a reaction, especially off the character of me and John, he knew that he would get a reaction and he did. I was fuming.
Terry had given his side of the story on the same podcast, explaining: ‘We did this possession game where me and Gaz played the ball into midfield. There’s no space to play it into midfield but you have to go through midfield to get into the other third.
‘Me and Gaz are feeding it, it’s getting intercepted, we’re conceding goals and he’s stopped the session. I’m captain, Gaz is vice-captain and he says, “See you two, you can f*** off.”
‘I’ll go and sign Varane and I’ll sign another top defender in the world and spend £100m and you two can sit on the bench and watch them. Me and Gaz were like, “f***ing hell we won the league last year!”
‘We couldn’t believe it. Me and Gaz looked at each other and said, “Right, game on”.’
Late in his Chelsea career Cahill would be managed by Sarri, who he does not have fond memories of at all as he was out of the team and very confused by his approach.
‘It was all tactical. What was Sarriball? I played it and I still don’t know what it is,’ Cahill said.
‘He didn’t play me so – it was very standstill. He was a very superstitious manager. We would practice a centre, the ball being played back to the centre-back who would put a foot on it, and smash a diagonal.
‘The restart of a game for example. We’d do that every Friday. You’re talking full on international players. That only needs one session, doesn’t it? It blew my mind.’