John Terry accepts he’ll never be Chelsea boss in dream-crushing realisation that ‘really hurts’
Chelsea legend John Terry has stated he has realised he’ll never manage the Blues, and that “really hurts”, along with the lack of opportunities that have come his way.
Terry spent 19 years with the Blues in all, coming through the academy and achieving legend status with the club. He racked up a whopping 717 senior appearances, as well as winning 15 trophies.
He left the club at the back end of his playing career to join Aston Villa for a season as a player, before moving into a coaching role. After a few years as an assistant, he left in the hopes that he could find a job as a manager himself, but has had no luck.
“When I left Villa, I applied for two or three jobs; I interviewed for Newcastle, and I interviewed for a couple before that I didn’t get,” he said on The Obi One Podcast.
“It was a really good process for me because you sit in those meetings and you go ‘actually, I’m way off this, I’m glad I didn’t get it,’ and you learn how to present in those meetings.
“Initially I didn’t go to League One because I didn’t know a lot about it, I’d never played there.
“That’s why I ended up in the Championship because I’d played a season there, I’d coached a couple of years and I fully understood the schedule. I applied for two jobs in League One and didn’t get either of them.”
Terry was upset by rejections from a few clubs – as one of the best captains in English football history, he’s spent years effectively managing people on the pitch, but has not been given opportunities off it.
“I came away broken from that. What I’ve achieved, if we talk about some of the managers we’ve had at Chelsea, effectively I’m taking a small bit of credit,” Terry says.
“I’ve managed players, people above me, staff when they’ve not been happy – I’ve done this job for the last 20 years and it’s something that I know I’d be really good at – so it really hurts that I’ve not been given the opportunity in the game.”
The centre-back has also come to the dream-crushing realisation that having not been given a managerial job at any level at this point, he’ll never be Chelsea boss, despite having desperately wanted to do so one day.
“My one dream I had when I left Chelsea is that I was going to come back as manager, but now I know it won’t happen. It hurts me and it’ll constantly be niggling away at the back of my mind,” he said.
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