The Curious Case of Chelsea’s European Credentials

After another failure in Europe, Chelsea’s wherewithal to win the European club football’s major prize came under the spotlight yet again. Over the last four seasons they were beaten out by Liverpool at the semi final stage on two successive occasions, lost the final against Manchester United and lost the semi final to Barcelona last season. Two of those defeats were on controversial circumstances; with Liverpool’s winner in 2005 not crossing the line and in last season’s debacle they had three seemingly genuine penalty claims against a Barcelona team that went on to beat Manchester Unite to lift the trophy.
But there was no iota of controversy on Tuesday night when Jose Mourinho came back to his old stumping ground, outclassed and outwitted Carlo Ancelotti to dump his old club out of Europe for the umpteenth time. In the build up to the second leg round of 16 clash, Mourinho insisted he would still be ‘The Special One’ whether Internazionale emerges victorious or not. Mourinho’s tactical savoir-faire left his counterpart Ancelotti looking like a high school coach. He spooked Ancelotti’s plan by fielding an attacking line-up, he shed the cloak of conservatism to use a three-pronged attack-Diego MIlito, Samuel Eto’o and Goran Pandev were supported by the reinvigorated Real Madrid reject, Wesley Sneijder.
In direct contrast, Ancelotti’s abysmal decision to use the pair of Didier Drogba and Nicholas Anelka upfront proved to be Chelsea’s Achilles’ heel. I don’t see Alex Ferguson or Arsene Wenger making that strategic blunder against a team like Inter Milan, they could have used Drogba as a lone striker while deploying two flying wingers, like Joe Cole and Florent malouda, to support him. Drogba, destite his recent form, was handled well; he is used to pummeling relatively inferior defenders in the Premier League. But he was shackled with ease by the pair of Lucio and Walter Samuel, who showed themselves as one of the most effective double acts since Laurel and Hardy, leaving Drogba and Anelka to feed on scrap.
Poor reaction to refereeing decisions afflicted Chelsea last season against Barcelona, as Tom Henning Ovrebo’s reluctance to award penalties they felt they deserved riled them up and distracted them from the task at hand. The same scenario occurred again this season, as Drogba found himself snarling at the referee during the first half at Stamford Bridge, and John Terry once again left the pitch at the end of the game fuming at the perceived slights against his side. Chelsea are certainly at the verge of developing a refereeing complex on big European nights, and rather than channel that into an improved performance it appears to deplete them of all quality and make defeat almost inevitable.
Champions’ League success is Roman Abromavich’s long-held dream, but how much longer can this familiar and time-served expensively-assembled Chelsea team keep on going to the well and coming back empty-handed? How many more blows of this sort can they take? They still have the Premier League and FA Cup to aspire at, but this, as in other seasons, has been an unfulfilling and ultimately chastening European campaign.