Champions League preview: Spartak Moscow v Chelsea
To Russia with love.
Roman Abramovich dreams about one day holding aloft the Champions League trophy, and while his era at Chelsea has produced several heartbreaking moments for the club in European football’s premier competition, the desire to win it is still so apparent. The Blues’ latest attempt takes them to Moscow tonight, and they’ve been there before.
Two years and five months have passed since John Terry slipped on the Luzhniki Stadium turf and watched on in horror as he blew the chance to win Chelsea, his Chelsea, the trophy that they prize above all others. Edwin van der Sar’s penalty save from Nicolas Anelka later confirmed that it was Manchester United who were the European champions, and not the Londoners. As Abramovich’s heartbreaks go, it must have been the toughest – and it was hard on the players too.
“Sometimes you're unlucky,” said Petr Čech, Chelsea’s goalkeeper that night in Moscow, and responsible for six clean sheets in eight Premier League games this season. “The Champions League is a hard competition to win because one bad game can change your destiny.
“Everybody wants to win it at some point in their career and you can see we go into every season with high ambitions and we always want to progress to the end.
“We've got the other titles as a club and so the Champions League is the only one missing. That's why everyone is talking about us in this competition. Go and ask a Liverpool supporter what he would like to win. Of course he would like to win the Champions League but remember they haven't won a league title for 20 years. Now everyone will say we want the Champions League more because we have won the other three trophies over the past six years.
“I think we can say the Champions League is kind of like a Grand Slam in tennis. It's always great for the rankings to be in the semi-final or final of a Grand Slam but history will only remember the winners.”
Serving up another successful run in the competition will be difficult though, particularly with a trip to a stadium that holds so many difficult memories for most of the squad, and against a talented Russian side who have won both of their matches so far. That hasn’t gone unnoticed by a man who used to call Moscow home.
“Since I played in Russia, Spartak are a completely different team,” said Branislav Ivanovic, the former Lokomotiv Moscow defender who joined Chelsea for around £10million deal in January 2008.
“But even though I left Russia, I still know all the results and the new players. I watch some games with (Russian team-mate) Yury Zhirkov and he talks about them, teaches me about players I don’t know. Yury is a cool friend. He constantly talks about Russian football.
“Spartak have changed almost their entire line-up and they have a lot of young players who are eager to prove themselves. And, of course, the Brazilians, who are Spartak’s most dangerous players.”
One of those dangerous Brazilians is striker Welliton, who has 16 goals in 18 games this season and could soon gain Russian citizenship in a bid to be fast-tracked into d**k Advocaat’s national team, but midfielder Alex is out with a thigh injury. There will be a dangerous Irishman for Chelsea to worry about too, with former Celtic winger Aiden McGeady expected to start.
Carlo Ancelotti has problems of his own before he starts worrying about the opposition.
The absences of Didier Drogba and Frank Lampard were keenly felt during the weekend’s goalless draw at Aston Villa, and both look like missing out here, but Alex, Salomon Kalou and Daniel Sturridge could all return.
With Chelsea and Spartak neck and neck at the top of Group F, the results between the pair look like determining who will finish top.
The Muscovites don’t travel well, and Chelsea will surely win at Stamford Bridge in two weeks’ time, so a draw here would be a good result for the Londoners.
A draw is what they’ll get, and this time they won’t have to go to penalties.
Prediction: Spartak Moscow 1 Chelsea 1
Tags: