Looking at partnerships in some areas of football and evaluating their importance can be a little tricky. At the sharp end of things, both in scoring goals and keeping them out, there are a plethora of numbers to define things. This is certainly the case with the two men who formed the rock-hard centre of José Mourinho’s first double title-winning Chelsea team: John Terry and Ricardo Carvalho.
Sometimes it can be difficult to definitively measure the effect of a partnership. For example, not many would demur from the opinion that Patrick Vieira and Emmanuel Petit were important to the success of the Arsenal team of their era, but just how important? Bergkamp, Henry, Seaman, Dixon and Adams were also major cogs in the machine that helped to make the team work efficiently. What about Roy Keane and Paul Scholes of Manchester United of broadly the same era? Did they contribute more to the success of the team than, say, Ronaldo, Rooney, Giggs or Beckham?
At the end of the previous season, with the warm glow of Champions League winners medals hanging around their necks, a number of Porto’s players were set to leave the Estádio do Dragão in the wake of their manager decamping to West London, and Ricardo Carvalho was one of the top targets for Europe’s elite clubs.
On top of the successful run to Europe’s premier club trophy, the defender had enhanced his reputation even further with a number outstanding performances in the Euro 2004 tournament, earning himself a place in the UEFA Team of the Tournament. Barcelona, Real Madrid, Internazionale and Manchester United had all been linked with the player, but Mourinho knew that this was the guy he wanted to form a partnership with Terry at Chelsea and swooped in with £25m to secure the deal. A few years down the line it looked like money exceptionally well-spent.