Football's most inspiring and unusual half-time team talks

Unsusual/half-time team talks
Some of these bits of rhetoric worked better than others

Sevilla staged a remarkable comeback from 3-0 down against Liverpool in the Champions League on Tuesday, after learning that their coach had been diagnosed with prostate cancer. According to reports, Eduardo Berizzo gave his players the shattering news in the dressing room at half-time before they launched a dramatic revival. Sevilla celebrated their 93rd minute equaliser by running to the touchline and embracing Berizzo, and their second-half showing suggested they were determined to express their solidarity with him. 

Here are some of football's most inspiring and unusual half-time team talks. 

Silence is golden - Arsene Wenger

Arsene Wenger rarely resorts to throwing tea cups around the Arsenal dressing room, believing that displays of anger lose their effect if used on the players too often. One occasion where the Zen-like ambience he strives for worked wonders was at half-time of a league game against Liverpool on Good Friday, 2004. 'The Invincibles' were on their way to an unbeaten league title, but had just lost an FA Cup semi-final to Man Utd and had their hearts broken in Europe by Wayne Bridge and Chelsea. 

Arsenal-Keown
Arsene Wenger had Martin Keown to thank for one half-time intervention Credit: Russel Cheyne

At 2-1 down against Liverpool, some wondered if Arsenal were going to collapse as they had done the previous season. As revealed in Amy Lawrence's book Invincible: Inside Arsenal's Unbeaten 2003-4 Season, Wenger decided to take a back seat and say the square root of nothing. Martin Keown was the one to deliver a few home truths, and by the time Thierry Henry had left Jamie Carragher and the rest of the Liverpool defence on the seat of their pants, Arsenal's season was back on track with a 4-2 win. 

Going Public - Phil Brown 

With his suspiciously bronzed tan, former Hull manager Phil Brown clearly knew the importance of keeping up appearances. When his team found themselves 4-0 down at Manchester City in 2008, he decided to make a show of them by delivering his half-time rollocking on the pitch. A group of well-paid athletes sat on the turf like a school team gathered round a stern games teacher, as Brown wagged his finger at them with a volley of Anglo-Saxon. It stemmed the rtide slightly, as Hull went down 5-1. 

The stunt was cemented in folklore the following season, when Jimmy Bullard and his Hull teammates recreated the team-talk as part of a celebration in the same fixture. 

Brown said: “I was told it meant I had lost the dressing room and that I had exposed the club to ridicule. But the bigger picture was that we had won at the Emirates, we had won at White Hart Lane, we had won at St James’ Park and lost 4-3 at Old Trafford. People choose to forget that.” 

Phil Brown-Hull
Who could forget it? Credit: PA

Rub of the Green - Chelsea's Masseur 

Chelsea's 1-0 victory at Manchester City in 2014 was dubbed a 'Mourinho Monday Night Masterclass', a rather sycophantic expression since applied to several 0-0 draws. However, the then Chelsea manager conceded (perhaps in jest) after the game that masseur Billy McCulloch gave the team talk. Described by John Terry as the 'funniest man in the world', McCulloch roused Chelsea's players before a crucial top of the table meeting. 

Mourinho said: "He was screaming so much in Scottish I didn't understand it.

"I'm serious. Rrrrr! Rrrrr! Rrrrr! I didn't understand. But the players looked like they understood. It was fantastic."

Of course, Mourinho has supplied every player with a 42-page dossier on their opposite number, but it McCulloch who made the difference. 

A Numbers Game - Rafael Benitez in Istanbul 

Benitez's half time alterations in the 2005 Champions League final were a critical intervention that inspired Liverpool's historic comeback. However, it was a case of bad process good outcome. Benitez wanted to take defender Djimi Traore off and replace him with defensive midfielder Dietmar Hamann - Liverpool would switch to a 3-5-1-1 with Steven Gerrard pushed further forward. 

However, just as Traore was heading for the showers, Liverpool's physio told Benitez that Steve Finnan was injured. Trying to think on his feet, Benitez got himself in a bit of a muddle at the white board. 

"I had Hamann, Finnan was still on and I added Traore back," Benitez wrote in his autobiography. "Someone pointed out I was sending out 12 men. So I rubbed out both full backs. It left 10 men."

It was Finnan who was taken off, Traore put his boots back on and the rest is history.

Bring Yer Dinner - John Sitton 

No collection of half-time team talks would be complete without it. Popularised by 1995 Channel 4 documentary Club For a Fiver, which detailed the plight of Leyton Orient through financial turmoil, Sitton's expletives turned him into a cult figure among fans - but ruined his fledgling career as a promising coach. 

A goal down to Sam Allardyce's Blackpool, Sitton sacked Terry Howard at half-time before offering two other players out for a fight. Exasperated by Howard's lack of professionalism (Sitton would later say he lived on takeaways and spent his wages at Walthamstow dog track), he delivered his fortnight's notice in the dressing room. It was his words to Barry Lakin and Mark Warren however, that would follow him until the present day: 

"And if you f****** come back at me, we’ll have a f****** right sort out in here.

"And you can pair up if you like. And you can f****** pick someone else to help you, and you can bring your f****** dinner. Because, by the time I’m finished with you, you’ll f****** need it. Do you f****** hear what I’m saying or not?'"

In his self-published memoir, A Little Knowledge is A Dangerous Thing, black cab driver Sitton revealed he was inspired by a scene between Robert Duvall and Sean Penn in the film Colors.  

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