UEFA Champions League: MSK Zilina vs Chelsea Preview
Chelsea has travelled to Slovakia to take on MSK Zilina in their opening fixture of the Champions League. With the last few unlucky seasons in the Champions League, the Blues under Carlo Ancelotti will do anything to win the European Cup.
The last season was not too much of a disappointment as the Blues won the Premier League and the FA Cup, completing their first ever double. Chelsea striker Didier Drogba collected the golden boot, while goal keeper Petr Cech won the golden glove.
However, having achieved every domestic trophy the Blues are now desperate to win the Champions League. The owner Roman Abramovich made it clear that it was the European prize he wanted when he got rid of manager after manager when they failed to bring it
to him. Starting from Jose Mourinho to Scolari, the Russian has finally settled with the promising Ancelotti.
Chelsea will go into the match confident of a big win; however they will be wary of an unexpected result. They kicked of the Premier League with comfortable 6-0 wins in their opening two fixtures, and even though won their next matches, they failed to score
as many goals as the first two times. Going on their history, Chelsea are favourites as they beat the Slovaks 5-0 in the qualifying rounds of the Champions League in the 2003-2004 season.
Pavel Hapal, the Zilina boss is aware of the task ahead of him. He knows that even a draw against the English giants will be an acceptable result but at the same time has faith in his side’s ability to surprise. He said, “It's a great challenge for me and
I'm really looking forward to it. On the other hand, we won't sell ourselves short.”
He added, “We want to show our supporters quality football and we'd like to get some points from our meeting with Chelsea. We respect our opponents; they're a really big club. Chelsea are obviously superior to us, but football is about 11 players playing
against 11 players and we want to walk off with our heads high after the match.”
Hapal has a fully fit squad available to him for this important fixture; his visiting opponent however, does not. Striker Didier Drogba is serving a ban brought forward from last season and will not be featuring in this match or the next. Frank Lampard recently
underwent a hernia operation and is still in recovery, he will be expected to return to the side by the weekend game against Blackpool.
Even though Jose Bosingwa was declared fit, Ancelotti is not taking any chances and the Portuguese defender is being rested for tonight’s match. Another defender not participating in tonight’s match will be Ashley Cole. Cole, who has been in excellent form
this season, is being rested and did not even travel with the team.
Ancelotti revealed his starting XI for the Champions League fixture in a pre match conference, he said, “I've already made a decision about the starting line up: Petr Cech, Ivanovic, Alex, John Terry, Zhirkov, John Obi Mikel, Michael Essien, Yossi Benayoun,
Florent Malouda, Nicolas Anelka, Sturridge.”
Ancelotti is a cautious man and he revealed he would not make the mistake of being over confident. He told reporters, “Zilina are a good team. I saw their play-off against Sparta. They deserved to go through. We have to be careful because they are a very
organised side, especially in defence, and can cause us problems.”
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