Former Chelsea captain John Terry has revealed he was fit for just five of the 717 games he played for Chelsea.
The defender joined Chelsea as a youth player in 1995 and stayed with the club all the way until 2017, interrupted only by a brief loan spell at Nottingham Forest – and is ranked at no.26 in FourFourTwo's list of the greatest Premier League players of all time.
That spell encompasses five Premier League titles, five FA Cups, a Champions League, a Europa League and three League Cups, and winning the PFA Player of the Year in 2005 – quite the haul.
John Terry opens up on the hidden costs of his Chelsea career
But such glory hasn’t come for free to the former England international, often paying the price through putting his body through its paces.
It’s often assumed that a player taking the pitch is de facto confirmation that they’re fit and in top condition, but Terry has moved to dispel that myth.
“I can’t tell you the amount of injections that I had to get through the next game,” Terry told BetMGM. “But that’s because I wanted to play in every single on.
“I played 717 games for Chelsea and I could say, genuinely, I was 100 per cent fit for five of them.
“When I went into a game, I rarely didn’t have a rib, arm, leg, ankle or some sort of injury – something always hurt.”
Terry puts his longevity down to that perseverance to get onto the pitch and play through the pain barrier, partly through fear that other members of the squad couldn’t match his level.
“That was just part of being a professional football and you can’t sit it out because you’re ill,” he continued. “The games come so thick and fast and you can’t afford to miss one. The player who might come in to replace you might not be at your level and in order to win titles and constantly compete, you need to be there, no matter what.”
In FourFourTwo’s opinion, Terry’s determination is certainly admirable, and it’s clear to see why he became a captain, but this is not guidance players should take in all circumstances.
In most cases, club doctors will know best – it’s better to be out for two weeks than force your way through something and wind up being out for four – and a club the size of Chelsea should always have a suitable deputy (or seven by modern standards at Stamford Bridge) to step in.
That being said, you don’t play 717 for any club, or in a single career, without an insatiable appetite for being present.
