Previous Chelsea managers have been sacked for failure in the Champions League. Will André Villas-Boas be any different?
André Villas-Boas enters uncharted territory on Tuesday night though most in his squad, and all in this club’s hierarchy, will recognise the familiar path they are about to tread. As the Champions League anthem booms out at Stamford Bridge, Chelsea’s quest for their holy grail will resume in earnest, the anticipated plod of the group stage a tantalising precursor to the defining knockout phase to come. Managers have come and gone under Roman Abramovich with none capable of delivering Europe’s most glittering prize. The Portuguese spoke of this being “one of our objectives for the season”, though that smacked of understatement.
The European Cup the oligarch has long craved has proved excruciatingly elusive to date over his eight-year ownership of Chelsea, with managers appearing to pay the price for their failure to claim the competition for Chelsea for the first time. Claudio Ranieri succumbed to his tinkering tendencies just as an opportunity for a glittering final hurrah seemed to present itself. José Mourinho was frustrated by a “ghost goal” and a fateful penalty shoot-out; Avram Grant by the most implausible of slips from John Terry at a sodden Luzhniki Stadium; and Guus Hiddink by the erratic decision making of Tom Henning Ovrebo. Carlo Ancelotti, who had won it twice as a player and twice again as a manager, was supposed to provide the knack and knowhow to break the duck though, if anything, Chelsea regressed in Europe under his stewardship.
Memories of five semi-final appearances in six years, which yielded only that one progression into the final, are starting to fade. Villas-Boas, the youngest manager to claim a major European trophy after securing the Europa League for Porto in May, is charged with restoring this team as contenders. “We’re always confident, but we just have to focus,” he said.
“Chelsea are not the only top European club who haven’t won it. Others have not won it and want it. It’s incredible, but it’s a fact. Only in the last few years have Barcelona added a few more European Cups to their trophies, after all, and they’re a top, top club.
“Our time will eventually come. We just have to focus on making it one of our objectives, as it has been for the past few seasons. I don’t think I’ll be judged on how I do [in the Champions League]. I don’t think so.”
That last sentence was actually repeated four times as if even Villas-Boas needed some convincing. There is an argument that, in the modern era, their prospects of claiming this trophy have never appeared slimmer. Barcelona, so scintillating at Wembley in May, still set the standard and are even reinforced this term. Manchester United, the defeated finalists, are refreshed, Real Madrid under Mourinho have improved and Manchester City’s ambitions do not allow for a few seasons acclimatising to life among Europe’s elite. They can already, and justifiably, consider themselves potential winners.
Chelsea, in contrast, have endured relatively swift dismissals from the competition at the knockout stages in each of the last two seasons. Ancelotti’s side only came up against two other teams of real European pedigree over his two-year stay and United and Internazionale won all four games, home and away, in both ties. Not that conviction within the squad has been deflated by those failures. Terry has veered from giddy praise of Barça to declarations of Chelsea’s intent already this season.
“I’ve seen Barcelona roll over a lot of teams in the Champions League, and clearly United in the final as well, so they’re the ones out there that everyone really needs to catch,” he said. “If you meet them on their day when they’re playing as well as they can, I’m not too sure anyone can touch them, if I’m honest.
“But, physically, I really believe that we are a good match for them. So, if we come across them in the Champions League, I believe that, out of all the teams, we’ve got as good a chance as any of beating them.” That betrayed the fact that Chelsea are still smouldering with a sense of injustice for events back in 2009 when Ovrebo denied a flurry of clearcut penalties, Hiddink tore his hair out on the touchline and Didier Drogba cursed conspiracy into a television camera.
The older members of this squad, Terry among them, rather cling to how close they came to jettisoning Pep Guardiola’s team from the semi-finals that year. No English club has really come closer over two legs in the years since. But the reality, surely, is that Barcelona have improved markedly ever since Andrés Iniesta thrust them into the final with a last-minute equaliser.
Chelsea, likewise, are no longer the same physically imposing side who once steamrollered opponents into submission. Villas-Boas is attempting to reinvigorate a squad, with his task also, apparently, “to win all the competitions we’re in with a certain flair and style”. If they are to prevail, they will not rely upon muscle.
Certainly, the hope is that a young manager who has never experienced this competition in the capacity he currently enjoys can make the difference, most probably tactically. And there is cause for optimism when it comes to the team’s challenge.
Theirs remains a relatively solid defensive base and if the likes of Terry, Frank Lampard, Drogba and Petr Cech can provide experience down the spine of this side, then the new faces – Juan Mata, Raul Meireles, Oriol Romeu – will fearlessly seek to shift the ball more swiftly, refreshing the team’s approach in the style demanded by the management. Chelsea, when they find their rhythm, have the potential to be a persuasive attacking force, particularly if Fernando Torres can fire. Villas-Boas may have dismissed the notion of a “mental block” affecting his squad but there are now key members of his team who do not carry the scars of previous slip-ups. That can only be beneficial.
Should other contenders eliminate each other in the knockout stage, and the Londoners benefit from a fit first-choice lineup and a dose of luck with the draw, then it is not outlandish to suggest they can yet flourish. “They have come so close before and, even in that last semi-final which they lost to Barcelona, everyone knows how they lost it,” said Villas-Boas.
“There were a couple of controversial decisions and, if any of them had gone in Chelsea’s favour, they’d have been in the final. There’s a kind of unpredictability that can sometimes take you all the way. Other times, it doesn’t. It’s the most difficult competition that we’re in, with a lot of good teams competing for one trophy, but we put our squad together in the belief that we can compete.”
They have, of course, said as much before. A year ago, with their league and cup double still fresh in the memory and 17 goals scored in their previous four matches, Ancelotti had sat in the media theatre in Zilina and claimed that this team had “come very, very close” in the past and that “maybe this year is the year it happens”. Given their domestic achievements some four months previously, it felt a natural opportunity to prioritise Europe. The Italian even went on to stress the importance of squad rotation and praise Daniel Sturridge’s raw talents, sentiments precisely echoed at Cobham on Monday by Villas-Boas who will make changes for the visit of Bayer Leverkusen with one eye on Sunday’s league game at Old Trafford.
Yet, even if Chelsea breeze through a group also containing Valencia and the Belgian champions, Genk, they would acknowledge that the real test of their credentials is to come. The group stage
