The goalkeeper’s shirt belonged to Hilário. The player wearing it was Chelsea captain John Terry, protecting a 1–0 lead at Reading with only nine men left on the field.
Hilário hadn’t yet made his competitive debut for the club. His shirt was needed first, on October 14, 2006, after injuries forced both Petr Čech and Carlo Cudicini out of the match. Twenty years later, the sight of John Terry in goal remains attached to a night that put Čech’s career in doubt.
The first emergency came before a minute had passed at the Madejski Stadium. Čech went down to collect the ball and Stephen Hunt’s knee struck his head. He was carried off, with Cudicini coming on. The injury was a depressed skull fracture, and Čech would undergo emergency surgery in Oxford.
Chelsea took the lead in first-half stoppage time when Frank Lampard’s free kick deflected off Ívar Ingimarsson and went in. The goal was credited to the Reading defender, not Lampard. John Obi Mikel was then sent off for a second yellow card, followed later by Reading’s André Bikey. Both teams were down to ten.
With Chelsea still ahead in second-half stoppage time, Cudicini collided with Ibrahima Sonko during a Reading corner. The goalkeeper was knocked unconscious and had to be carried off. José Mourinho had already used all three substitutions. Chelsea couldn’t send on another player, and the position that had already required one replacement was empty again.
John Terry in goal, Barcelona next
Cudicini’s introduction for Čech had used the first substitution. Joe Cole had subsequently replaced Andriy Shevchenko, and Salomon Kalou had come on for Arjen Robben. Cudicini’s departure therefore left Chelsea with nine players against Reading’s ten. Moving Terry into goal solved one problem while creating another: Chelsea now needed to cover his position in the defense.
Didier Drogba had already made a crucial intervention during the attack in which Cudicini was injured, clearing Nicky Shorey’s header off the line. With Terry taking the gloves, Drogba moved to center back. Chelsea’s captain was now behind the defense, while its center forward was part of it.
Terry didn’t have to produce a succession of improbable saves. His assignment was confined to the closing stages of stoppage time, and Chelsea’s own account says he had little to do. The score stayed 1–0. The team had completed the match, but both of its goalkeepers had needed hospital treatment.
Cudicini was released from hospital. Čech’s injury required specialist neurosurgical care, with two metal plates fitted in his skull. The two collisions had forced the same immediate decision on the field, removing the goalkeeper, but their medical consequences were different.
Four days later, Hilário finally made his competitive Chelsea debut. The opponents were Barcelona, the defending European champions, at Stamford Bridge. Ronaldinho and Lionel Messi both started. Hilário kept a clean sheet, and Drogba supplied the only goal in another 1–0 victory.
Čech later recalled that he thought the Barcelona match was the first game he’d been allowed to watch on television after his injury. Hilário was making his debut against one of Europe’s strongest attacks while the goalkeeper he was replacing was beginning his recovery.
In a later account of his hospital stay, Čech described repeatedly waking and being unable to retain basic information about where he was or what had happened. He said it took about three days before he could remember the answers to the questions he was being asked. Returning to goal wasn’t something he could take for granted.
“Nobody knew if I would be able to come back,” he recalled.
His recovery depended on medical care and the support of his family and friends, all of whom he credited when looking back. On January 20, 2007, just over three months after Reading, he returned against Liverpool at Anfield. Chelsea lost 2–0. Čech was playing again, now wearing a protective headguard.
Doctors advised him to keep wearing the headguard, and he did so until retirement. He went on to win the Champions League with Chelsea in 2012 and finished his Premier League career, across Chelsea and Arsenal, with a record 202 Premier League clean sheets.
Terry’s goalkeeper shirt was a temporary fix. Čech’s headguard became part of a career that, for a time, he’d feared was over.
