Ashley Cole made a surprising choice when he was asked to name his favourite manager while at Chelsea.
The former England defender played for eight different managers in eight years while at Stamford Bridge including Jose Mourinho and Carlo Ancelotti.
But the manager who got Cole’s vote was Luiz Felipe Scolari because he encouraged the Blues to “play like Brazil.”
Cole, a Champions League winner under Roberto Di Matteo, was a guest on Sky Sports’ Monday Night Football analysing the game between West Ham United and Liverpool.
Scolari didn’t last long as the Chelsea manager after he was appointed in 2008 and was sacked after a poor run of results. Cole said Scolari helped him to find his best form and that the style of football he promoted was the most attacking and attractive to watch.
“I enjoyed Scolari, Ancelotti, they’re probably my favourite two,” he said. “Scolari came at a time where I wasn’t playing as well as I probably knew I could when I first came to Chelsea. Probably Chelsea fans can agree with me that I wasn’t the Ashley Cole they knew at Arsenal.
“So he came and he brought this new lease of life. It’s just like playing for Brazil, he said, ‘let’s play like Brazil’.
“And he had me bombing up and down against people like Jamie Carragher. Jose]Bosingwa on the other side and we kind of had no rules in terms of we could play, we could go where we want.
“The left and right-back were going at the same time and that’s kind of unheard of at times. We were playing some great football and then probably by December we kind of petered out a bit and after that he got the sack.
“The best football we have ever played in a football shirt but he got the sack six months later yeah.”