Former blue reveals how “brutal guy” Jose Mourinho destroyed his “self-esteem” at Chelsea
Former Chelsea star Andre Schurrle joined Chelsea in the summer of 2013, but lasted only two years at the club.
Schurrle’s career at Chelsea started out well, but he later struggled under Jose Mourinho.
The former Chelsea and Germany international retired at the young age of 29, and he has now revealed the kind of pressure he faced under Jose Mourinho.
According to Schurrle, Mourinho pressured him because he wanted more from him, but he couldn’t deal with the psychological pressure from the Portuguese, as he labelled him as a brutal manager.
“He’s a brutal guy,” Schurrle said in a YouTube interview with German presenter Joko Winterscheidt. “I always thought to myself: What does he do anyway? Why does he treat me like this? Why does he do this to people?
“In retrospect, I realise what he wanted and what resources he was working with. At the time, I couldn’t really deal with the things he wanted from me because of all the harshness and the psychological pressure. “Back then, it was extremely difficult. I would often drive home after conversations with him and just thought I couldn’t do it anymore. What could I do? He was building up such extreme pressure.”
Schurrle also revealed one time that Mourinho threatened him to score two goals in Michael Ballack’s farewell game.
He said: “At that point in time [June 2013] I was already in negotiations with Chelsea and Mourinho was my coach for the game. He said to me, ‘If you don’t score two goals today, I’ll loan you to Southampton’. I didn’t know if he was joking or not.”
Schurrle also said: “It was often the case that I played from the start and then he’d replace me at half time. Then, in the next game, I wasn’t in the squad and I was in the stands. I couldn’t understand that at the time and I lost my self-esteem. My ego was hurt.
“Then I started thinking about what mind be going through his mind. Sometimes during training I had the feeling that he was only looking at me, even if that probably wasn’t the case.”