Käyttäjä:BlockerBright905
Five Champions' League semi-finals in the past six years. As Chelsea's newly appointed manager, Carlo Ancelotti, pointed out in the first interview, that is a wonderful achievement. However, it clearly isn't quite good enough. The fact that those five semi-finals have only led to one ill-fated final appearance must be a source of incredible frustration for Chelsea's billionaire owner, Roman Abramovich, and also the club's supporters - although a little less so on their behalf, perhaps.
The reason the long-standing Chelsea fans might be a a bit more philosophical about 'only' reaching the last in five attempts is that many of them are probably still only just becoming accustomed to challenging for honours at all. Until 1997, when Chelsea won the F.A. Cup, the club had won nothing for 26 years - if you don't range from the old Second Division title. Chelsea's fortunes in the 1980s, once they had been bought by Ken Bates for the princely sum of £1, slumped to such an extent they almost found themselves in English football's third tier.
But how it turned around during the last decade of the century. Even before Abramovich's arrival in 2003, the process of recovery had started. Managers of 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 the time were ground breakers in a lot of ways - with their continental managers and their overseas players particularly - becoming the first club to take the field having a team without a single British or Irish player inside a fixture against Southampton in 1999.
So, when the Russian oil magnate brought in Champions' League winner José Mourinho to take over the team in 2004, just about 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 a record-breaking run of 86 matches in which they remained unbeaten in their Stamford Bridge ground.
With some of England's finest players - John Terry, Frank Lampard, Ashley and Joe Cole - and with some outstanding foreign imports - Didier Drogba, Michael Essien, Michael Ballack and Nicholas Anelka - the world sat and waited for that trophies to continue. And particularly for the 'holy grail' that Abramovich wanted a lot; that Champions' League.
And yet within the last two seasons Chelsea have flattered to deceive - and frustrated their supporters so much. Occasionally when they're so powerful they overwhelm even the strongest opponents; almost bullying them into submission because of their physical, and mental, superiority. But there seems to happen to be some fatal flaw within the club's make-up that 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 2009 those same players were criticised for their lack of sportsmanship.
Some have blamed successive managers because of not being able to control 'big' players - as though that was ever a problem for someone like Luiz Felipe Scolari.
Some have even blamed Abramovich for either losing patience with Mourinho too quickly in 2007 or apparently losing his enthusiasm for that club for a while.
However, having didn't persuade the admirable Guus Hiddink to stay at the club after his rejuvenation from the team in his short spell in control, Chelsea have appointed somebody who has won the Champions' League Trophy two times as a player and twice as a manager. Surely, Stamford Bridge - a wonderfully atmospheric ground to watch your football compared to some of the various other 'soul-less' stadiums around - will probably be able to witness something just the most optimistic of fans might have dreamed possible twenty short years back; a group capable of winning the Champions' League.
