It is April 5. The morning after a rough night before. Jose Mourinho admits he
can’t sleep after matches. He sits at home, watching the video, pondering
errors, plotting improvements. A few hours after a tactically outmanoeuvred
Chelsea had drawn 1-1 with Valencia in London, their Champions League
campaign, and with it, their manager’s future at the club are in peril.
Mourinho heads to his medical department, seeks out the club’s “rehabilitation
physio” and delivers his nocturnal conclusions. “I need Essien,” the manager
tells Thierry Laurent. “You have until next week to get him fit to play in
Valencia.”
April 10, second leg tied at 1-1, Estadio Mestalla steeling itself for extra
time, Michael Essien drives down Valencia’s left flank and collects a pass
from Andriy Shevchenko. He shapes to cross, but notices Santiago Canizares
drifting off his line. “I saw the goalkeeper try to anticipate the cross in
so I just shot a quick one into the near post,” he says. “Normally you don’t
score that kind of shot, but I was a little bit lucky and got that in.”
Fortunate or inspired, Essien’s strike let Chelsea complete the single most
impressive away-leg recovery in European competition this season, reinstated
Mourinho as the Champions League’s tactical tsar, and steered his team back
en route to the quadruple.
Essien had injured himself keeping Chelsea in the FA Cup, straining the medial
ligament of his right knee badly when 3-1 down to Tottenham, yet playing on
through the first half, and refusing to be substituted at the break. “The
doctor was asking the boss to substitute me but I told him, ‘I can, I want
to play’,” says Essien. He carried on and at one point had a shot that
inflicted further damage. “I grabbed my leg because it was just really
painful, and we had no substitute left so I had to keep going. I really made
it worse after the game,” he recalls.
Cue Laurent and the Frenchman’s specialised recovery programme. Chelsea have
both the biggest medical department in the Premiership and a reputation for
getting their injured players back on the field faster than any other club.
When Mourinho prioritises a player, the attention to the task is startling.
“I had one physio to work on me exclusively,” says Essien. “I’d go in every
morning at, like, 10 and leave around five. I have to do massage, I have to
work in the gym, ride on the bicycle, go out and do some endurance. It’s
really boring. Sometimes I’d sleep at the training ground because I had to
be there for so long.”
If a prodigious appetite for shut-eye — “13 or 14 hours on average” — and
daily phone calls to mother Aba in Accra are two of Essien’s most endearing
traits, an overzealous approach to tackling at one point threatened to stall
his progress in England. The Ghanaian’s first months at Stamford Bridge
after a £24.4m transfer from Olympique Lyon-nais were dynamic, with
possession stolen and muscular runs past, or occasionally, through,
opponents. Then, in a December 2005 Champions League group game with
Liverpool, Essien raised his boot to claim possession and brought the weight
of the world down on his head.
His tackle was poorly timed in three ways. First, in the most literal sense,
going high and into Dietmar Hamann’s right knee. Second, in arriving 22
minutes into a goalless tie so devoid of spectacle it was highlighted in
match reports and provided gruesome viewing and a talking point for
television producers starved of highlights. Third, in coinciding with the
height of dissatisfaction with Chelsea’s cocksure PR and pragmatic football.
One columnist demanded that this “high-paid hitman . . . be drummed out of the
footballers’ union”. Embarrassed that their referee had failed to show a
yellow card, Uefa deemed Essien guilty of “gross unsporting conduct” and
suspended him for two games against Barcelona that saw Chelsea exit the
competition. Though Essien publicly apologised more than once, he could not
put his error to bed.
Sitting in a lounge of the Cadogan Hotel, Essien is all shy smiles and amused
giggles, talking of his love of London and a Ghanaian restaurant in
Tottenham where you should “eat jolof rice or fried yam. It’s good, but it’s
heavy”. Then the Hamann incident is mentioned and he turns serious and
reflective. “I think it was very unfair, I didn’t deserve that,” he says. “I
think people do much more serious things than what I did, and I said I
didn’t mean to do it. I didn’t like the way they treated me. It shocked me.
I think they showed every one or two minutes on Sky TV — it was
unbelievable.”
The European ban was preceded by an injury, and when Essien returned he was a
more introverted footballer, questioning his natural style while opponents
pressured officials into bridling it. “It affected my game. Any time I went
in for anything the players would come out and the referee would just show
some cards [there were three in his next six appearances]. It changed a
little bit my game, but I think at the end I came back strongly to finish
the season.”
Essien was suspended again for last week’s semi-final first leg, so his
Champions League reacquaintance with Liverpool will be on Tuesday and he
will strengthen the dominant Chelsea side that won 1-0 at Stamford Bridge.
Mourinho can use him on the right-hand side of his midfield diamond, adding
still more competitiveness to the centre, or at right-back, where Essien
defends more robustly and counters more tellingly than Paulo Ferreira or
Lassana Diarra.
Essien has played in every position in defence and midfield this season and
carried out all with elan. Critics have turned into admirers. “I think the
idea has changed,” he says. “They know the sort of player that I am, I’m not
like this one who goes out to hurt people. I’m aggressive, yes, and as a
midfielder you try to win every tackle, every ball, and that’s what I’m
doing. I always go for the ball, not the man. When I was a kid they always
told us: ‘You have to be first to to the ball’. And I think I still have
that in mind.”
Amused again, Essien laughs at that the thought that his unusual,
take-the-pass-ahead-of-the-striker approach to central defending is educated
by the coach who trained him in Awutu when he was 12. He smiles once more
when asked to describe his personality on and off the field.
There is a long pause. “I think I’m a very calm person, very shy,” he says. “I
don’t talk much when I don’t really know a person. And I’m always happy —
always smiling. When I’m on the pitch I’m a different man, I’m more
aggressive and I mean business. It’s like I’m in the office — I have to work
hard so on the pitch I look very different, I look much more aggressive. I
don’t joke with my work.”
He can’t explain the difference: “Before the game I’m very relaxed. Sometimes
I crack a few jokes in the dressing room, but as soon as I cross the white
line everything changes. It’s just walking on the pitch, seeing the ball
that does it.”
The man who kept Mourinho at Chelsea. All he had to do was show him a
football.
TV match
Liverpool v Chelsea
Tuesday, ITV1, 7.30pm, kick-off 7.45pm
