When you play in a team with John Terry, Frank Lampard, Petr Cech, Didier Drogba, Michael Essien, Ashley Cole, Claude Makelele… OK sorry we lost or train of thought.
When you play in a team with as many great players as the one Ricardo Carvalho played in, it’s easy to be forgotten.
In any other age he would probably be given way more credit, but unfortunately for him he played at a time when there were so many brilliant players in Blue that he has to wait for his turn to come around to get some praise.
That turn has come today on the Chelsea official website however, with Pat Nevin writing an entire piece about the former Porto man and how good he was for Chelsea.
It’s full of choices quotes, with one section in particular that we like:
“[Carvalho] wasn’t just an out and out football assassin, his true world-class ability above all his other attributes was his uncanny ability to read the play and see where the danger was likely to develop from. That usually meant winning the ball clean and if someone had to feel the force of the tackle after he won the ball, then so be it. There are a very few players who have this ability to an almost supernatural level and they are not all defenders. Claude Makelele had it but so too has N’Golo Kante.”
It’s something we’ve been missing at centre back for some time, and perhaps we were spoiled by having Carvalho and JT for so long in that position. None of our current crop seem to have that innate nose for danger that the Portugal star did.
