What Happened to Chelsea?

The 2011-2012 season was a turbulent one for Chelsea fans to say the least.  It is impossible to gauge all the factors that influenced one of the most confusing seasons in the history of Chelsea Football club, but I have some theories. Indulge me.

There is something that I want to get out of the way at the very beginning: I am a big fan of Andre Villas-Boas. It might seem unusual that I would say I regret that he was sacked considering the end that Chelsea had to their season, but I wish he was still at the helm. The bottom line for this club that has risen so quickly to Europe’s elite is that the foundational players that got the team where they are now, are aging; and although the final push this season could not have been done without them, there has to be a transition. I believe Villas-Boas was the man to do that job. I’m not saying Di Matteo is incapable of doing it, but changing Managers halfway through a season sets you back at square one again. Perhaps AVB went about the transition too quickly and laid the massive weight of a world-class club on the fragile shoulders of Chelsea’s new and surprisingly young players, but the fact remains that he was doing something that previous managers had been unwilling to try. With Drogba already gone, Malouda being ousted, and Lampard showing signs of age, the time is now to make the transition and it worries me slightly that Di Matteo had to rely so heavily on those players to get the results he did, although we can’t really judge a coach that was given two or so months to turn round the fortunes of a struggling club.

So what was Chelsea’s problem in the first half of the season? And what triggered a turn-around that gave the club their first ever Champions League trophy? Firstly I have to state my belief that players can have a much larger impact on a team than the coach; if they choose to. Picture a team that has won the Premier League several times as well as the FA and Carling Cup, thanks, not so much to any particular coach, as Chelsea have changed coaches so often over the years, but to the incredible performances of Terry, Drogba, Lampard, Cole, and many other veteran players. Now picture those players taking the backseat to newer, younger players in a matter of weeks. Those veteran players were slow to offer their crucial leadership qualities and experience to a coach who threatened their positions in a club they had worked so hard to build. The younger players were given too much responsibility too quickly and the club crumbled from within. Despite the best efforts of AVB, he could only do so much, the players, whether consciously or not, lacked the resolve required to win top-flight games.

I don’t pretend to know what happened within the dressing rooms at this club during the closing days of AVB’s reign and into the transitional period that saw Chelsea make a complete turn in form, but from what I saw from the players after that, I have my suspicions. When Di Matteo took over he gave a majority of the leadership and decision making powers to those players that had been with the club for so long and knew how best to win as a club. The time I saw the Chelsea I knew consistently playing the traditional Chelsea style was when Di Matteo took over. Why? Perhaps partially because Di Matteo had been with the club for so long, but also because the veteran players were calling the shots, whereas before, AVB was.  Watch the FA cup final. When did we see those players that united before in this season. Watch the Barcelona semi-final or even the Bayern Munich final, although Chelsea didn’t play the style to get good press clippings, they played together and they played the way they knew would win them the game.

So the bottom line for the club is this: A transition is needed, everyone knows that. With the purchase of Hazard and Marin and Oscar, as well as Sturridge and Ramires recently, Abromavich is clearly showing where his priorities lie, especially with his long-standing habit of buying top class players that are already well into their careers. We have already seen that for the transition to work it must be done more slowly than AVB initially thought (I think he had it figured out, but clearly it was too late) and Di Matteo might just be the man for the job as he showed his remarkable instincts in choosing a rotation in the squad that was requisite for the remarkable amount of games the team played in such a short amount of time. Hopefully this transition takes place. Personally, I hate seeing these veteran players that have immortalized themselves in my mind become old and be replaced, but I also realize that is the way football is and I am finding a slight excitement for the new generation of Blues.

Joga Bonito

Dallin

My Love for Watching Soccer, Particularly the Blues

This is part two of the two part series that I began in the first posting I did in this blog. As part of me is angry for waiting so long to re-post, another part of me is grateful as I have been witness to some of the most incredible soccer in the past two months. I realize that some will disagree with me when I say that I loved watching the way Chelsea played during the last three or so months of their season, so let me explain.

Part of this portion of the series is to explain why I love watching soccer so much. Why I am willing to wake up at 5 AM to watch a Premier League match live, or why I put effort into requesting certain days off work just so I can watch soccer. It all began with the 2006 FIFA World Cup. I had been playing soccer for a number of years at that time and was fairly confident that I had found something I loved doing, but I still had no desire to watch the sport. I, with the majority of the rest of the country, found the sport dull and uneventful for most of the ninety minutes played. After all, how could it be exciting to watch a sport where scoring only happens, on average, two or three times in an hour and a half; sometimes not happening at all? Because I had a few friends that enjoyed watching it, I spent the month of June engrossed in the most spectacular sporting event that occurs in the World (In 2010,almost half the world tuned in to watch the Finals in South Africa). There was so much passion, so much vision and heart in those players that it was impossible for me to not feel the ole’s when they happened, the beat of the drums, the chanting of national anthems throughout the course of the matches. This feast of football was something that I could not take my eyes off of. The World Cup is still my favorite to watch and waiting four years for the next one is almost more than I can bear.

It was all history after that. I found myself getting soccer wherever and whenever I could. When I reached High School age, because Champions League games were held during the day on weekdays and that so unluckily coincided with school, I found myself skipping class with friends to partake in the history that was made every night in the Champions League. Because of the disinterest most of this country shows in the sport, it is not easy to find a place on television that shows games on a regular basis. Fortunate enough for me, I worked at a job for three years where I watched soccer for the majority of the day at work (although I was keen that my boss not find out it was so, I am fairly confident he knew all along).

Because I was once blinded by the misconception that this is a boring sport to watch, I would like to clear some falsehoods from the way of those that are still missing the pure joy of watching this beautiful game. The complaint I hear the most among these people is how you can watch a game that has so little scoring and sometimes ends scoreless. I have had many wonderful opportunities to explain that the only reason they think like that is because American sports have trained them to. With basketball scores reaching into the hundreds, football measuring progress in terms of ten yards so those watching can feel like something happened even when the score is staying the same, and baseball allowing basically the same with every hit and runner on base, it is easy to understand why a lack of visible progress can be so detrimental to a viewer’s attention span. But once you learn how intricate the passing plays are, how much calculated movement every player in the team is making while they don’t have the ball, how to appreciate a breathtaking save from a keeper or a pinpoint pass or shot, the practice that goes into the perfect free kick, soccer is no longer 22 men kicking a ball back and forth hoping it goes in the net. It is a spectacle of enormous proportions as each individual player moves into correct position and continually evolves into a team unit that works out in every separate match how they are going to unlock the opposition’s defense to score the goal that brings victory. When you can watch football like that, every second is as tantalizing as the next, and the suspense of wondering when that stroke of brilliance will come will leave you on the edge of your seat for the entire 90 minutes.

Returning to another point that I feel I must defend, I will explain why my blood is blue, and why Chelsea FC is the one and only club I will ever support. During the 2006 World Cup mentioned earlier I saw a defender that displayed every trait that I wanted to have as a center back. He was an unparalleled leader, commanding the best from his teammates. He was always in the right place at the right time. He was strong and vicious, making those opposing strikers think twice about entering his territory to score a goal. And when I saw John Terry clear that ball off the line with an overhead kick, I realized that I always wanted to play the game of soccer with as much heart as he did. After the World Cup ended, I realized that I wanted to watch him play more and learn from him. I found he played for Chelsea and I began to watch all their games that I could. This time coincidentally coincided with the Abromavich era at the club and I began to enjoy watching the other Chelsea legends as well. The likes of Lampard, Drogba, Joe Cole, Arjen Robben; these were men that personified Chelsea football and made me a supporter for life. 

Over the years I watched them win numerous cups and league titles. They always seemed to play with heart that many other clubs lacked. Although they spent considerable money on players, they always seemed to come together in a Chelsea family that I loved watching. The epitome of why I love Chelsea can be seen at the end of the 2012 season. After being left for dead by much of the media, Chelsea fought back to claim an FA cup title and their first, ever elusive, Champions League title. Having overcome deficits in both the FA cup and Champions league round of 16, each new obstacle brought with it a declaration of unavoidable failure from the media. Playing on what I believe was pure heart they beat Barcelona and scored in the final minutes against Bayern Munich to win on penalties. Regardless of what others will say to discount them of their win, they deserved it. They had only themselves to blame for their struggles earlier in the season as well as their triumphs in the closing stages. That grit, heart, and team-spirit is what has led to my love of Chelsea Football Club and has made them my Club forever.   

Joga Bonito

Dallin

What I learned from the Chelsea vs. Manchester City Game (3/21/12)

I diverge from my two-part series for this post. The second half will be posted shortly.

What I learned from the Chelsea vs. Manchester City Game (3/21/12)

#1- A coach can make a big difference, but the players ultimately decide a team’s fate.

I don’t intend to embark on anything close to discussing the Andre Villas-Boas sacking and all that led to it. That is a topic for a different post; but who can argue that Chelsea have made an incredible turnaround in a matter of days? After dropping points in numerous league clashes with lesser sides and standing at the brink of elimination from the Champions League and FA cup, Chelsea turned round their fortunes by nabbing two league wins and forcing decisive victories against Birmingham and Napoli to progress in the FA cup and Champions League, respectively. Many would venture to mark this renewal at the Bridge as evidence that AVB needed the sack and once he was gone and Roberto Di Matteo stepped in, the rot that had been causing Cobham to stink so badly was finally on the mend. Similar situations were witnessed at Chelsea when Jose Mourinho was sacked and Avram Grant took the helm for the remainder of the season as well as when Luiz Felipe Scolari was shown the door and the ever-popular Guus Hiddink called the shots until the end of the season.

Of course, a coach makes a load of difference, but I would venture to guess that in some situations, especially those in which the players often exert an incredible amount of influence in the dressing room on account of their experience and personality (such as the case at Chelsea), the players may have even more pull than the coach. Call me crazy, but there was a very visible and distinct difference in not just the playing style of Chelsea, but also the attitude and moral of the team from under the last days of the Villas-Boas reign to these first few days of life under Di Matteo. To take it one step further, Chelsea’s performance against Stoke in their second game under the interim manager was dismal; the player’s attitudes reminding me of the previous weeks under AVB. The coach made some difference but it was the players that needed to change to gain big wins over Napoli and Leicester City.

To make my point clear, I take you back to when Chelsea played Manchester City earlier this season. I saw a Chelsea side that made me long for previous winning seasons. AVB was still there, and I highly doubt he completely changed his coaching style for the second half of that match, but the players changed their outlook and got the 3 points they were looking for, playing a style that was so familiar from their previous title-winning seasons, a style that Villas-Boas had never even tried at the club. I saw many similarities between the home and away fixtures these clubs played this season. Unluckily, Chelsea fell short in the latter one, but they played much the same because they decided to.

#2- You can pay for talented players, but you cannot pay for class.

Don’t worry, not all my points will be as long as the first. Me being a Chelsea fan put aside, I was extremely disappointed with some of the performances made by Manchester City players in Tuesday’s game. First: I am sure I was not the only one to see Toure push Mata in the face and kick him when he did not even have possession of the ball. There is absolutely no reason for that, and it goes to show that talent does not always equal class on the soccer pitch. Second: It is no secret that Mario Balotelli has a sketchy attitude, at best, but seeing him give up several times on chasing a loose ball for no apparent reason, and rarely show any desire to be on the pitch was only affirmation that a paycheck does not determine if you are going to get a good showing from your stars.

My third and final example is (do I really want to start this conversation?) Carlos Tevez. The form and length of his punishment is not my decision to make and I admit he did have to sit out for a while, but after what he did to that club, and continued to do after his first offense would have been more than enough for me to give him the sack, and I cannot believe that they put him back on the field, and to applause! If this was the first and only time something like this had happened in his career it would be different, but isn't that why he left Manchester United? Don’t be surprised to see similar outbursts from the “superstar” in the future. Manchester City have certainly paid for bags of talent but in the process have been unable to harness the class required for world-class squad. Why do you think they have been knocked out of two European competitions this season? Because raw skill alone cannot compete against teams that have skill and class.

#3- A player’s form and confidence can change in a very short period of time, and just because a substitution has worked in many games does not mean it will work in every game.

I bet you can’t guess who I’m talking about. I was never one to give up on Fernando Torres. His motivation was never lacking, or his work ethic. What was lacking was his confidence. I will speak more on him in another post, but that confidence was vastly improved as a result of his two goal two assist showing in the FA cup. He was looking extremely sharp and for every minute his regular hard working self in the Manchester City game, even coming back on numerous occasions to play defense. In so many situations in the past, Didier Drogba has been brought on as a substitute in the closing minutes of a game (often for Torres himself) and has changed the course of the game into a win. I do not doubt his immense skill, but it was only five minutes after the bringing on of Drogba for Torres that Manchester City staged their comeback. I feel the substitution was a deciding factor in the outcome of the match.

As well, from the look on Torres' face when he was being brought off, it was a blow to the player's confidence when he was doing so absolutely well. A substitution working many times in the past does not warrant it to work every time, and each game and substitution decision needs to be made in context and taking into consideration the current performance of the player on the field, and the difference he is making.

Joga Bonito

Dallin

My Unexpected Love for the Beautiful Game

The purpose of this blog is, truly and honestly, to fulfill a kind of dream that has been repeating in my mind for quite a few years. I love soccer. I also love (though not to the same degree) writing. Yes, writing about soccer would be a dream come true for me, but since Sports Illustrated and Soccernet don’t have any openings for a 21-year-old wannabe with little experience in the field and even less education, this is where I will start. As a foundational argument for whatever articles follow in this rant of a project, I wish to start with the reasons I love soccer. I will begin with how I fell in love with the beautiful game, and in the next article explain why I love watching it, particularly Chelsea FC (because I know the enjoyment of both are a complete mystery to many of you). So please allow me to indulge myself and, who knows? Perhaps you may even enjoy it. 

Experiencing the kind of resistance that comes from being a soccer fanatic in a school, community, and nation, even, that shows so much indifference to the sport has been something of a blessing in disguise. I have no intention of throwing a pity party for myself or even trying to impose this sport on anyone. I love all sports, and I enjoy watching an athlete performing at the peak of human potential whatever the capacity may be. No, the reason for this is to open the door of the beautiful game to those who may otherwise never understand why it is the most popular sport in the world. At the high school where I experienced the climax of my playing career, as embarrassing as that is to admit, there were only a handful, at best, of people that could carry on an even semi-intelligent conversation about the sport. It was difficult, even hurtful at times, to see hundreds, sometimes thousands, of people pack into a high school stadium or gymnasium to watch football or basketball and then go to the local middle school or city park to play in front of maybe 20 people, who were almost never anyone but parents. Students and adults in the community would talk about the football game last night, or who will start on this year’s basketball team, and not even know of the existence of a varsity soccer team.

The reason I bring this to the forefront of this pioneering article is because you cannot grow up in an environment like this and still be so dedicated to soccer without developing a deep love for the sport, the kind of love that I have for the beautiful game. I started like the rest of America does, playing little league soccer in a city recreation program; parents and coaches not understanding a single thing about the sport except that you are supposed to kick the ball into the goal, having never watched a single game in their lives or played a minute of soccer for that matter (and we wonder why our national team does so badly on the international stage). But why should they? There isn’t much to the sport anyway is there? Wasn’t it just invented so that children and girls have something to do? That is certainly what every American-made movie about soccer portrays (if the sarcasm is not obvious enough, let me say one more thing: every time I hear one of those things said, I feel like slapping the offender in the face). An age comes when soccer is no longer cute, when guys realize that to fit in they have to start playing football or baseball instead of this sport that seems to be only for girls, and when parents realize that their son is too old to play soccer and needs to move to a more “mature” sport, and when that time came I broke the mold for some reason; me and the other 20 or so other guys that ended up playing high school soccer together. All I know about why I made this decision is that different sporting schedules were conflicting and I chose the sport I was best at.

It was the best decision I ever made. I became engrossed in the sport. It became the only thing that I wanted to do with my time. I played every possible season on every possible team that I could, some years playing a season of soccer every season of the year. I remember one game when I was around 14 years old. We were playing in a tournament in Pocatello against a team that was supposed to be the favorites to win the tournament, and the first team that we had played outside of Idaho Falls. For some reason I can remember a specific play when the ball was about to go out of bounds and I sprinted to the side and slid to keep it in, after everyone else had left it to go out. The ball was then passed up the field for a goal. As silly as it may sound, I don’t think that I remembered this because it was a good play or anything of that nature, but because it was the first time I remember playing with heart, which is a feeling I know some of you can understand, but not everyone. It is when I realized that soccer was so much more than a sport to me. I could have let the ball go, but it wasn’t in my nature to do so. 

Another occasion I remember came when I was much younger, perhaps ten, playing on a city recreation team. I usually played defense or midfielder, but in this game the coach let me play up top, and we were losing by a few goals. I remember the coach telling me that I could play striker if I gave it my all and proved to her that I deserved it. I don’t remember exactly how many I scored, but I scored quite a few because I wanted to know that I could. I remember the greatest moment of playing in my senior year (that was cut short because of a knee injury), was when we beat Skyline, a rival high school, for the first time in my High School’s history. The game was so much more than fun or competitive. It gave me a feeling that I had rarely felt any other time in my life and that is impossible to describe. 90 minutes of pure adrenaline, wanting every ball, fighting for every possession, doing everything within human capacity to not let the other team get a shot on goal. The feeling of victory was something I will never forget. Again, it was not so much the fact that we played a good game as it was the fact that we had pulled together as a team, and left everything on the field. It was pure joy.

I fell in love with soccer because I have always felt at home with a ball at my feet. I am not even close to being a really good player, not even one of the best on my team, but that didn’t matter. I love playing because of the feeling I get when I play. Whenever I am stressed or worried about something, I can go play soccer and my head will be completely cleared of everything but the beautiful game. Perhaps anyone can feel this in any sport, but that is hard for me to imagine. 90 minutes with only a 15 minute halftime. No other breaks, few, if any, substitutions, no pads, no other special equipment; just you, 21 other players, and a pitch. You get what you put into it and there is nowhere to hide. No chance to stop the game and re-group if things are not going your way. You can either lay down and let the other team trample over you, or you can pull it together and change the game yourself. It is a language that is spoken by the entire world, and a passion that is ignited in every country in the world. 

If anyone reading this knows exactly what I am talking about, if you have your own “played with heart” moments, or 90 minute adrenaline spells, if you can lace up your boots, kick a ball around for a while and have the best time of your life: I salute you.

“To say that these men paid their shillings to watch twenty-two hirelings kick a ball is merely to say that a violin is wood and catgut, that Hamlet is so much paper and ink.”
J. B. Priestley
The Good Companions.
















Joga Bonito


Dallin