利用者:WinniStringfellow308
Five Champions' League semi-finals in the past six years. As Chelsea's newly appointed manager, Carlo Ancelotti, stated in the first interview, that's a wonderful achievement. However, it clearly isn't quite adequate. The truth that those five semi-finals only have led to one ill-fated final appearance should be a source of incredible frustration for Chelsea's billionaire owner, Roman Abramovich, and the club's supporters - although rather less so for them, perhaps.
The reason the long-standing Chelsea fans might be a little more philosophical about 'only' reaching one final in five attempts is the fact that most of them are probably still only getting used to challenging for honours whatsoever. Until 1997, when Chelsea won the F.A. Cup, the club had won nothing for 26 years - if you don't include the old Second Division title. Chelsea's fortunes in the 1980s, after they had been bought by Ken Bates for the princely sum of £1, slumped to this kind of extent that they almost found themselves in English football's third tier.
But exactly how it turned around over the past decade of the century. Before Abramovich's arrival in 2003, the process of recovery had started. Managers from the international pedigree of Glenn Hoddle, Ruud Gulli, Gianluca Vialli and Claudio Ranieri all helped establish the club as one of England's leading outfits and the F.A. Cup was won in 1997 and 2000 and also the UEFA Cup Winners' Cup in 1998. The Chelsea of this time were ground breakers in so many ways - with their continental managers as well as their overseas players particularly - becoming the very first club to take the field with a team without a single British or Irish player in a fixture against Southampton in 1999.
So, when the Russian oil magnate brought in Champions' League winner José Mourinho to take within the team in 2004, almost everyone suspected that 'the special one' would produce a special team.
So it proved. The Premier League was won on two consecutive occasions, as well as the F.A. Cup again and the League Cup (twice). From March 2004, the team embarked on the record-breaking run of 86 matches in which they remained unbeaten at their Stamford Bridge ground.
With some of England's finest players - John Terry, Frank Lampard, Ashley and Joe Cole - with some outstanding foreign imports - Didier Drogba, Michael Essien, Michael Ballack and Nicholas Anelka - the planet sat and waited for that trophies to carry on. And especially for that 'holy grail' that Abramovich wanted so much; that Champions' League.
But within the last two seasons Chelsea have flattered to deceive - and frustrated their supporters so much. There are occasions when they are so powerful they overwhelm even the strongest opponents; almost bullying them into submission due to their physical, and mental, superiority. But there appears to happen to be some fatal flaw within the club's make-up which has stopped them making that ultimate breakthrough.
Some have asserted it is because some of the overseas players have not been committed enough; but then when they showed their passion and commitment after losing controversially to Barcelona in '09 those self same players were criticised for their insufficient sportsmanship.
Some have blamed successive managers because of not being able to control 'big' players - as though which was ever an issue for someone like Luiz Felipe Scolari.
Some have even blamed Abramovich for either losing patience with Mourinho too rapidly in 2007 or apparently losing his enthusiasm for that club for some time.
But now, having didn't persuade the admirable Guus Hiddink to remain at the club after his rejuvenation of the team in his short spell in control, Chelsea have appointed someone who has won the Champions' League Trophy twice as a person and two times as a supervisor. Surely, Stamford Bridge - a wonderfully atmospheric ground to watch your football compared to a few of the other more 'soul-less' stadiums around - will probably be in a position to witness something just the most optimistic of fans might have dreamed possible twenty short years ago; a team capable of winning the Champions' League.