Jose Mourinho once told John Terry to 'f**k off' and threatened to sit him on the bench midway through a pre-season training session.
That's according to Terry, who has opened up on an explosive incident during Mourinho's second managerial spell at Chelsea.
Speaking on John Obi Mikel's new podcast, the Blues legend told a story about the Portuguese that summed up his ruthlessness. Samuel Eto'o also spoke to Mikel and revealed that Mohamed Salah was reduced to tears following a dressing room tirade.
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After winning the Premier League title, where Terry and Gary Cahill were captain and vice-captain respectively, Mourinho organised a training session ahead of the 2015/16 season, where he called out the two defenders in front of the whole squad.
Terry revealed how Mourinho went berserk and threatened to bench him and sign then-Real Madrid star Raphael Varane, who is now at Manchester United.
The 42-year-old recalled: "We'd signed a few new big players, and he did this possession game where me and Gaz are playing the ball into midfield and there's no space to play but you had to go through midfield to get to the other third.
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"Me and Gaz are feeding it in, it is getting intercepted, we're conceding goals, and he stops the session."
He added: "I'm the captain and Gaz is vice-captain, we'd just won the league the year before and he goes 'you two, you can f**k off. I'll go and sign Varane and another top defender in the world for £100million and you two can sit on the bench and watch them'.
"Me and Gaz are like 'f**king hell' we won the league last year! We couldn't believe it.
"Then we looked at each other and thought 'game on.' I promise you for the rest of the session, all me and Gaz did was kick absolute lumps out of everyone."
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The ex-England international continued: "The level in training went up and the new players went 'oh my god, he's just battered the captain and vice-captain. He's in charge.'
"Afterwards he put his arm around me and Gaz walking off the pitch and said to us 'that's why you are my captain and vice-captain.'"
The defensive partnership of Terry and Cahill was crucial under Mourinho as they steered Chelsea to the league title in the 2014/15 season.
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The veteran boss didn't sign a defender during that summer transfer window, but he was relieved of his duties in December 2015.
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Topics: John Terry, Raphael Varane, Jose Mourinho, Chelsea, Football
Nasir Jabbar