Jose Mourinho’s Defensive Masterclass, Part 1
If world football was a University, then Jose Mourinho would be the professor in charge of teaching the classes on defending. In this 3 part series I will be dissecting 3 of his best teams in a single season who perfectly embodied his tactical principles with unerring precision.
The aforementioned teams are Chelsea 2004/05, Inter 2009/10, and Real Madrid 2011/12. I will begin with Chelsea, where Mourinho duly developed his reputation for favouring the defensive side of the game after leading the West London side to their first league title in 50 years and breaking numerous records along the way.
Chelsea racked up 95 points and won 29 matches, records only recently surpassed by Pep Guardiola’s 2017/18 Man City. However, their records for the least goals conceded (15), the most clean sheets in a season (25) and 1,025 consecutive minutes without conceding remain unbroken to this very day. Statistics are often misleading but it’s noteworthy that Man City haven’t and likely never will break the records that are purely defensive metrics.
This is the most poignant example of the philosophical difference between Guardiola and Mourinho, a coaching rivalry that can be broken down to proactive idealism vs reactive pragmatism but that is a story for another day.
So how did Chelsea do it ?
Fresh off winning the European Cup with FC Porto. Jose Mourinho’s first order of business was to go against English footballing dogma and deploy Chelsea in his preferred 4–3–3 formation rather than the perennial 4–4–2. Most Premier league teams at the time played in a 4–4–2 and this meant that Chelsea had numerical superiority in midfield 90% of the time.
Mourinho did not utilise this as a way to control possession like Pep would, but he ensured he had a spare man in the space between their defensive and midfield lines (usually Claude Makelele) or a spare man in the space between the opponent defensive and midfield lines (usually Frank Lampard).
These men were the key cogs in Chelsea’s well oiled machine. Lampard ended up as club topscorer that season with 19 goals in all competitions. In the same vein, Makélélé’s performances were so revolutionary that in England the defensive midfield position has been dubbed the “Makélélé Role” ever since.
The standard defensive midfielder is usually tasked with winning the ball as soon as possession is lost and immediately passing it to a more creative teammate. But Makélélé offered much more than that, being blessed with outstanding positional awareness and a high level of mobility owing to his small stature (he was only 5ft 9). His playmaking from deep in the defensive third helped Chelsea to take full advantage of their numerical superiority in midfield.
Either Tiago or Geremi would occupy the third midfield role and acted as a sort of buffer, assisting in both the attacking and defensive phases but never wholly focused one one like Lampard and Makélélé.
In the build-up, Chelsea could beat the press via the wide spaces by giving the fullbacks the ball who could pass to feet to 2 of the central midfielders while the third moved higher up the pitch. Alternatively, the fullbacks could lob the ball to the more advanced midfielder if the two deeper positioned ones were both marked.
Similarly, the fullbacks could also Lob the ball to one of the wingers who usually found themselves one on one with the opposition fullback. If none of these methods worked then Mourinho’s trump card was Didier Drogba, who played the target man role to perfection.
One of Cech, Carvalho, or Terry would play a vertical long ball to Drogba who would mark one of the opposition centre backs and head the ball down to the spare midfield man (usually Lampard) who would drive into the centre space and take a shot at goal.
Or if he was marked, play a through ball to one of the wingers cutting inside to take a shot themselves. Otherwise, Drogba could flick the ball into one of the wingers.
In Defence, Chelsea would look to initially press high up the pitch but if that failed then the wingers would drop deep, changing the team shape to a 4-5-1. In transition, Drogba would hold up the ball during giving the wingers enough attack the wide spaces again.
Ultimately, the back four is where Mourinho’s Chelsea truly shined. Utilising a very narrow defensive width, akin to Atletico Madrid 2014–16. Chelsea’s defenders exhibited supreme defensive discipline and concentration throughout the entire season.
Both Terry and Carvalho dealt comfortably with any aerial passes, and in goal Petr Cech was an absolute phenomenon when it came to shot stopping. In the long run, the secret ingredient was the siege mentality Mourinho impressed upon his players and made Chelsea 2004/05 one of the greatest teams in Premier League history.
They are still and will remain the gold standard of defending for the foreseeable future. Arsenal 2003/04 (Invincibles) conceded 26 goals, Man United 2008/09 conceded 22 goals , Man City 2017/18 conceded 27 goals, and Liverpool 2019/20 conceded 33 goals.
