Former Chelsea manager Jose Mourinho has had the privilege to work with some of the best central defenders the game has ever seen.
For example, Mourinho was John Terry’s coach during his two spells as Chelsea boss.
The Special One also managed Sergio Ramos while he was at Real Madrid, where he will return to this summer.
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Jose Mourinho names Chelsea legend John Terry and Inter Milan legend Marco Materazzi as his best ever centre-backs
Mourinho recently gave an interview for MM23, an interactive book about Marco Materazzi, where he hailed the Inter Milan legend and Terry as the two best central defenders he has worked with.
The interview was shared by Materazzi on his official Instagram account, and in it Mourinho said: “In my whole career, where I coached the best players of that generation, the two best central defenders I ever had were John Terry and Marco Materazzi.”
Mourinho was able to achieve huge success at Chelsea and Inter because of players like Terry and Materazzi.
At Chelsea, Mourinho won three Premier League titles, three League Cups and one FA Cup with Terry at the heart of his defence.
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He won two Serie A titles and one Champions League trophy alongside Materazzi at Inter. In total, Materazzi only made 35 appearances under Mourinho (via Transfermarkt), but he clearly left a good impression on him.
As for Terry, he was a more prominent figure for the Portuguese, making 267 appearances. Looking at Chelsea today, they could really do with a Terry or Materazzi.
Their current crop of centre-backs includes the likes of Levi Colwill, Wesley Fofana, Trevoh Chalobah and Tosin Adarabioyo.
Colwill and Fofana both started for Chelsea over the weekend and had an afternoon to forget as the Blues went on to lose 2-1 to Sunderland. Fofana was really poor and was sent off just after the hour mark following a second yellow card.
Individual performances like that show just how much Chelsea miss having a Terry-like figure in their defence. It is something that they can hopefully address in the transfer window, though that is going to be extremely difficult.
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