Hernan Crespo tells gruesome John Terry tale on Chelsea skipper playing second half with ‘hole in his foot’ after Rooney tackle
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Hernan Crespo talks about his memories of playing with John Terry at Chelsea in an exclusive interview with Ladbrokes who have a free-to-play World Cup Half-Time quiz for every match.
I was so lucky at Chelsea to play with so many great players: Petr Cech, John Terry, Ricardo Carvalho, Frank Lampard, Michael Essien, Claude Makelele, Didier Drogba, Arjen Robben… the list is so long and I’m sure I’ve missed so many. That team, at home, drew only one game in a season. We never lost and we beat Manchester United 4-0. That was an amazing team.
But in terms of one stand-out player, for me, it’s simple: John Terry as my captain was just something special.
I remember against Manchester United at the end of the season where we needed just a point to win the title, he had a bit of an argument with Wayne Rooney in the early stages and then went in for a tackle against him where Rooney wanted revenge, so he made this really tough tackle on JT. We didn’t think too much of it and JT carried on playing but when we came into the dressing room at half-time, he took his boot off and his sock was completely full of blood.”
He took off his sock, and near to his ankle, there was a big hole in his foot. The physio wanted him to get treated as soon as possible and wanted Jose Mourinho to substitute him off.
“No, no, no. I’m playing the second half.” he said.
He asked for an injection in the hole in his foot, they strapped him up and he put his socks and boots back on, went out for the second half and we went on to win the game 3-0 and therefore the Premier League. Everyone was over the moon, happy, celebrating, and the day after JT turns up at our training ground on crutches.
He was everything a captain should be, you know? He never wanted to drop out of a game. He wanted to stay until the end and fight for his team. He really did set standards at the club so high, and we all had so much respect for him.
You see the most unbelievable and incredible thing about this, is that this happened just weeks before the World Cup in Germany. One month later, we were playing in a World Cup, and JT risked his place at that tournament to play through the injury as captain of Chelsea Football Club.
