He had style, he had guile, he played with passion and heart, he was destined to be a Blues champion from the start.
While John Terry will always be our ‘Captain, Leader, Legend’, right there beside him supporting him during his glory days was his Portuguese deputy, and partner-in-crime – Ricardo Carvalho.
His relationship with JT, Cech, and the rest of the Blues backline would go down as one of the greatest defences in Premier League history. In particular, his partnership with JT was something of pure artwork. The way in which the two complimented each other’s game and forged a psychic-like chemistry would set the benchmark for Centre Back pairings for generations to come.
After 210 appearances for the Blues, Ricardo ‘the Rock’ Carvalho collected 3 Premier Leagues titles, and as many FA Cups, 2 League Cups, and a Community Shield. With this, it is safe to say that this Portuguese star played a pivotal role in helping the Chelsea become a global powerhouse during the Blues golden era.
The Early Days
Ricardo Alberto Silveira de Carvalho started his professional footballing career in his native Portugal with Primeira Liga (or Liga NOS for sponsorship purposes) giants FC Porto as a junior. Carvalho would go on a loan spell to a few Portuguese clubs to build up his experience before returning to Porto in 2001 where he would soon earn his place as a regular starter alongside centre back partner Jorge Andrade.
When Jose Mourinho joined Porto in 2002, this would coincide with the meteoric rise of Carvalho, and set him on course to become the superstar defender that he eventually became. Interestingly, Ricardo was the third choice centre back when Mourinho arrived but soon established himself as an indispensable player for Jose. That season saw Carvalho help Porto secure the UEFA Cup, the Primeira Liga, and on an individual level, he won the Portuguese Footballer of the year and Porto player of the season.
In the 2003-04 season, Carvalho and his Porto teammates were able to build on the success of the previous season as they won the Portuguese Super Cup, secured their second consecutive Primeira Liga, and won the holy grail – the UEFA Champions League. Again, on an individual level, Ricardo added to his fast-growing reputation as he was included in the UEFA Champions League team of year, the UEFA team of the year, and finished 9th in the Ballon D’or standings (the only defender in the top 10).
Adding to this was his impressive displays for Portugal in Euro 2004 whereby he helped his country to the final, albeit they suffered a shock loss to tournament surprise packets Greece. Individually speaking, Carvalho’s performances were sufficiently impressive enough for him to be selected in the UEFA Euro Team of the tournament. With his stocks at an all-time high, it was the perfect time for Ricardo to move abroad and test himself in a foreign league, playing with the best of the best each week and seeing whether he truly should be regarded as a genuine world-class defender.
The question was, would he want to go to a traditional giant like Real Madrid, Inter Milan or Barcelona, of which, were all interested in his services, or, was he interested in helping a club that was on the ascendancy and looking to force its way into the global elite? As it turns out, it would be the latter. Chelsea had a bid of €30 (£25.5) million accepted by Porto, but more importantly, by Carvalho himself who rolled the dice and took the gamble to join his Portuguese mentor Mourinho and become part of a project that would revolutionise Chelsea Football Club, the Premier League, and European football more broadly.
Carvalho as a Blue
Fresh from winning the Champions League with Porto among a pair of Portuguese League Titles and a Super Cup for good measure, the self-proclaimed Special One came into the Premier League with big expectations given his impressive record, along with the hype he generated.
With this, Mourinho knew that to bring success to Chelsea Football Club, like a good house, the foundations needed to be rock-solid. In other words, the success of Jose was largely attributed to him moulding his team’s to build a stable and cohesive defence, and exploit the weaknesses of the opposition. For all of the negative talk about Mourinho’s pragmatism, his extensive footballing intelligence and ability to extract the maximum value from his players were the cornerstones of his longstanding success.
Given the winning formula at Porto, which was largely was built on the defensive solidarity brought about by Carvalho and co. Mourinho convinced Abramovich to open his cheque book and splash the cash on his Portuguese soldier to fortify the Blues backline and develop Chelsea into an impenetrable unit. Carvalho’s professionalism and positive influence on the squad was imminent. Ricardo would play a vital role in helping Chelsea to win their first Premier League title in 50 years, along with the League Cup. Among all of this, what was most impressive about that particular campaign was the fact that the Blues only conceded 15 League goals! Given the position Carvalho played, and considering the high-quality opposition he was up against, the above record-breaking statistic is something that Blues fans will always appreciate. While he was not the only player responsible for this achievement, his contribution to it was significant.
In the following season, Ricardo would again be an influential member in helping Chelsea seal back-to-back Premier League titles. The highlight of that season undoubtedly for Carvalho was when he scored an end-to-end classic against Manchester United at the Bridge to help the Blues win 3-0 and ensure we remained Champions of England. Putting aside the gravity of the goal, the quality of it on its own was simply top shelf. Carvalho started the move in our box by dispossessing Van Nistelrooy, he carried the ball out and found Lampard who progressed the move with Joe Cole upfield, who in turn picked out Carvalho (who continued his run into the United box), and with a delightful first touch he set himself up to hammer home the goal from 15 yards. It would go down as a truly memorable goal for Blues fans. While Chelsea didn’t quite manage to maintain the same level of resilience in terms of goals conceded compared to the previous season, a paltry 22 goals was still better than the rest of the competition (3rd placed Liverpool being the next best defensive team with 25 goals conceded).
Although Chelsea fell just short of winning a historical third consecutive Premier League title, the 2006/07 season would prove to be Carvalho’s most active year on the field with the Blues. Despite narrowly finishing runners up to Manchester United, the Blues were again impressive from a defensive standpoint, only conceding 24 goals in the League (3 less than Champions United and 3rd placed Liverpool), and losing only on 3 occasions (again, less than any other team that season). While it wasn’t quite the same as winning the League, Carvalho would still help the Blues secure a hard-fought 2-1 victory over London rivals Arsenal to win his 2nd League Cup. On a personal level, the highlight for Carvalho surely would have been his 35-yard rocket into the bottom left corner to sink Spurs 1-0 at the Bridge!
Similarly to the previous season, and despite the departure of the Special One, Carvalho would continue to be an outstanding performer for Chelsea as he would guide them to a second consecutive runners-up position (again behind Manchester United), and as a Champions League finalist against the Red Devils (let’s not revisit of how that match ended up). Although he didn’t add any trophies to the Blues cabinet that season, on an individual level, Ricardo continued to win over the footballing community with his superb defending capability and chemistry with JT and co.
In his penultimate season with the Blues, Ricardo’s season was unfortunately tainted with injuries as well as falling victim to a managerial change as Scolari parted ways and the incoming Hiddink preferring to deploy Brazilian Alex with JT. Combining this together meant Carvalho was a peripheral figure throughout much of the campaign.
However, in his final season at the Club, Carvalho thankfully had a more active role, despite battling with some niggling ankle injuries towards the end of the campaign. The best part for Ricardo that season would have been that his departure coincided with some nice additions to his and Chelsea’s trophy cabinet. Firstly, a Community Shield (of which he scored a glorious diving header and secured the man-of-the-match award) against United, a third Premier League crown (again, beating United to get some personal vengeance for previous seasons), and a third FA Cup which would be the Blues first Premier League/FA Cup double.
Life after Chelsea
Once he parted ways with the Club after the 2009/10 season, Carvalho joined Spanish giants Real Madrid to reunite with his Portuguese mentor Jose. At Madrid, Ricardo did what he does best, that being, he brought about defensive discipline and stability within a club that is more commonly known for its attacking style of play as opposed to being a defensively solid unit.
This sharpened defensive solidity he brought resulted in Madrid securing the La Liga title against a rampant Barcelona in what would prove to be Carvalho’s last significant and influential season. After 3 seasons and 77 appearances with Real (which yielded 3 goals and 2 assists), Carvalho accepted the challenge of helping Monaco in Ligue 1 to push champions PSG over a few seasons.
Perhaps the most impressive part during his time in France was that he made 118 appearances, scoring 2 goals and adding 4 assists. For an experienced defender who has played at the highest level domestically and internationally for over a decade, and suffered some serious injuries along the way, to rack up these appearance figures at his age (joined Monaco at 35) speaks volumes of Ricardo’s professionalism. Finally, Carvalho pulled the curtain on his distinguished career with a handful of appearances for Chinese Super League with Shanghai SIPG.
Final thoughts
Carvalho achieved just about everything with the Blues (should have had a Champions League or two but that’s a sour spot and we won’t go there). Not only was he an amazing one-on-one defender that possessed great athleticism and positional awareness that complemented JT’s strengths, he had this incredible ability to make timely interceptions and use his passing ability to help Chelsea commence a dangerous counter-attack.
I genuinely believe we were only given snippets of his attacking prowess due to the system and style of play he was asked to operate within i.e. The Chelsea of old did not exactly promote or permit the Zouma-esque type of runs (see Chelsea v Ajax in 2019/20) from the back as this may have created a vulnerability defensively should that person lose possession. An example of Carvalho’s supreme intelligence and attack-minded ability was when we were versing Liverpool at the Bridge in 2007. In this game, Ricardo made a terrific interception, made a great run from the back, played a peach of a pass to King Drogba, who in turn made a galloping run along the channel (turning Agger inside out in the process), before squaring it to Joe Cole in the box to slide it home from close range.
Although he won’t be remember for his goal-scoring feats (not surprising considering he was a centre back), he did manage to find the back of the net on 11 occasions, of which, contained a couple of classics, including one rocket aforementioned. Now as the Assistant manager for Marseille, perhaps Carvalho can give us the inside word on some up and coming stars that we can lure to the Bridge. At the very least, hopefully he doesn’t try and poach any of our stars through his knowledge and connection to the Club!
To wrap it up, Happy Birthday Ricardo Carvalho, thanks for the memories! You were a fantastic servant to the Club and will always be welcome back to the Bridge. Once a Blue..
Sources:: https://www.transfermarkt.com; https://www.premierleague.com/
Written By Ross-John (RJ) Bonaccorsi
Edited by Dami Adeleye & Jai Mcintosh