Peter Crouch has revealed the “disgusting” tactics John Terry used to manipulate Premier League referees to avoid bookings and red cards.
The former Liverpool, Portsmouth and Stoke Pinball striker says former Chelsea captain Terry has used clever pre-match tricks to win over high-ranking officials throughout the season.
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Crouch claims that Terry will manipulate and disarm the governors by calling them by their first names and inquiring about their families.
This meant in the heat of battle that referees would be reluctant to warn the Chelsea defender if he caused a foul or caused poor handling.
talking on The show appeared on Amazon Prime, Crouch said: “What I saw creeping into the game, during my time, was when the captains came in before the game and talked to the referee.
“To me, they’ll always be ‘The Reference.’ I grew up with just ‘The Reference. Now it’s like Mike and James. They’re all called by their first names. It just got them to standby.'”
“I remember Darren Fletcher being good at it. But John Terry was amazing at it. Just sticking around the ref.” Ah, Mike, you okay? How is the family?’ all of this.
“Unreal. I thought: ‘This is disgusting.’ He was crawling around the reference.
“This means [the ref] He will think twice. If he hits someone in the first minute, he gets up and says, “Sorry Mike.” Then think twice before booking it. It’s little things like that. “
In the episode, Crouch interviewed former Liverpool teammate Steven Gerrard, now Rangers manager, about his favorite players, their moments and the club’s goals at Anfield.
Crouch and Patrice Evra, the newly retired full-back at France and Manchester United, also shared stories about their experience with Cristiano Ronaldo.
Evra said: “Ronaldo invited me to lunch after a day of training. I’m really excited. I thought we could have some good food and the right food. We had a tough training session.
“When I arrived, dinner was salad, plain chicken, water, no bread, no baguette for the baguettes. Nothing.”
“We started eating. I was like, ‘Okay, maybe the main course is coming in.'” But nothing.
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He said: Let’s play with two touches in his garden. So, we started playing football.
“I thought, ‘This is a really weird lunch. “
Then he said, “Let’s go swimming.” Well, I said, we just finished eating, I don’t want to vomit in your pool.
“We started swimming slowly. Then he was swimming like it was the Olympics.
After that, he said, “Actually, let’s go to the sauna.”
“I said, ‘Wait Cristiano, I respect you, I love you. I said we were going to have a nice lunch, but I feel like we’ve got a second practice session. I’m never going home again.'”
“He started laughing. I said, ‘No, I’m your guest. You should treat me better next time.'”
“So, I will not go to his house again until he swears he will treat me like a king.”
Meanwhile, Crouch said Ronaldo was useless during his days with Manchester United.
He said: “One of the English players – I won’t mention his name – told me a funny story when they were wrapping Ronaldo up in the United dressing room.
He told Ronaldo: You are not as good as Messi.
Then he passed in front of the mirror and said, ‘But Messi doesn’t look like that!’
