Chelsea FC: The curse of Fernando Torres – Roman Abramovich’s £50 million down the drain
Roman Abramovich, the Russian billionaire and the 53rd richest person in the world, lifted Chelsea from a mediocre club to one of the best club’s in England with an injection of millions of pounds.
A football fan himself with too much cash on his hand, Abramovich decided to buy Chelsea FC in the summer of 2003. As soon as he arrived, the Russian spent £ 115 million, around two Torres worth, to completely change the shape of Chelsea’s squad by bringing
in Duff (£17m), Makelele (£16.8m), Smertin (£3.5m), Mutu (£15.8m), Johnson (£6m), Crespo (£16.8m), Bridge (£7m + Le Saux), http://www.senore.com/Football-soccer/Joe-Cole-c18694 (£6.6m) and Parker (£10m).
Abramovich’s shopping spree continued for the next 8 years. Drogba, Cech, Carvalho, Robben, Essien, Wright-Phillips, Shevchenko, http://www.senore.com/Football-soccer/FC-Porto-c39186 manager who led them to back-to-back European Cup and UEFA Champions League silverwares,
Jose Mourinho were all in Abramovich’s shopping bag for just the next 3 years. His most expensive item was Shevchenko (£30m) till 2011.
Abramovich’s cash was able to buy http://www.senore.com/Football-soccer/England-c749, behind Manchester United, in the past 7 years.
However, money can’t buy everything. In desperation of grabbing the UEFA Champions League Cup, Abramovich made his biggest signing in January 2011, Fernando Torres, from http://www.senore.com/Football-soccer/Liverpool-c39809 for a record £50 million.
Just before the second leg of the Chelsea v. Manchester United quarter-final, Sir Alex Ferguson commented regarding this transfer that Chelsea is obsessed with the Champions League, and blinded by that obsession, they threw £50 million on http://www.senore.com/Football-soccer/Fernando-Torres-c13707,
who they perceive to guide them to European glory.
Ferguson’s statement is probably true. But Abramovich’s Torres gamble was a drastic failure. Carlo Ancelloti, Chelsea’s manager, started him in both, the first and the second leg of the quarter-final, despite the fact that Torres has not scored a single
goal or shown any appraisable performance since his arrival at Stamford Bridge.
He was terrible in the first leg, yet he stayed on the pitch for the whole game. Instead Drogba was substituted with 20 minutes of game to go with Nicholas Anelka. Torres couldn’t even score off an open header with an injured Van der Saar in front of him.
It was surprising that Chelsea with everything at stake once again started Torres in the second leg and left Drogba on the bench. However, there seemed to be some sense knocked into Ancelotti when he took him out after the first half, replacing him with
Drogba. Drogba scored a goal for Chelsea and might have scored more had he started the match, which he did believe as he spoke to http://www.senore.com/Football-soccer/Patrice-Evra-c29231 after the match complaining about something – probably why he didn’t just injure Torres early in the game.
Ancelotti, though substituted Torres, was still not mentally competent to coach Chelsea for this match. He substituted Nicholas Anelka with around half an hour of game to go with Kalou who scored his last goal around 3 months back. However, it was clear
that Ancelotti was not the only person making the decisions. Ancelotti was bound to do what Abramovich dictated him.
This scenario in Chelsea, where the owner interferes with the manager’s job is what drove Mourinho away and what brought Torres in. Ancelloti, former AC Milan manager, is one of the best managers in the world and cannot be expected of making such idiotic
decisions – signing Torres for £50 million and then making him play as well. Perhaps Chelsea would have been better off with Torres playing for the opposition, against them rather than for them.
Abramovich should learn from the moral of the story – money can’t buy him European glory – he wasted £50 million and trying to prove he hasn’t will cost him more titles – recovering some cash by selling Torres’ shirts is not going to work now.
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