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When Chelsea won the Europa League trophy on Wednesday night, there were obviously a lot of very happy, smiling faces from the blue portion of London. Branislav Ivanovic, the game winner, said “It’s a great feeling. This team deserved this, because we have had a very difficult season and a lot of games”, while manager Rafa Benitez simply said he was “very proud” of the achievement.
It is never a small thing to win a trophy. When a club wins a piece of silverware there will always be a sense of accomplishment that goes along with it. After all, you always want to win, no matter what the game or the situation. That’s what being a professional player is about.
It’s difficult to understand, however, how anybody involved with Chelsea could be particularly proud of their achievements this year. What have they actually done? Winning the Europa League after winning the UCL last season is the football equivalent of going from CEO to Personal Assistant to the CEO and being happy about it.
I don’t want to belittle the Europa League too much. It is a good competition in its own right and would be a fantastic accomplishment for most teams. But it definitely isn’t one for Chelsea. For a team as big as Chelsea, it is a consolation prize only.
So Chelsea can proclaim they’ve struggled through a difficult season and emerged victorious, with a shiny new trophy in hand. They can shower themselves in champagne, pat themselves on the back and say “good job guys!”, all the while knowing deep down what the rest of the world can see in plain sight; this season has been nothing but a step backwards for Chelsea FC.
Their domestic league campaign can’t really be criticised too much. While some Chelsea fans might see a 3rd place finish (potentially 4th or 5th if they lose to Everton on Sunday) as a bit of a disappointment, it is a huge improvement on the 6th place, 64 point finish they ‘achieved’ last year. And considering the calibre of the two teams ahead of them, there is no disgrace in finishing 3rd. Of course Chelsea won’t want to slide into a pattern of being the ‘best of the rest’ behind the Manchester teams, but for now let’s not worry about that. They have a Champions League berth all but sown up and they are the second highest scorers in the league behind Man Utd.
Their football on the bigger stage, that is the European stage, is a different story.
Last year, on their way to lifting the most coveted club trophy in the entire world, Chelsea claimed the scalps of Napoli, Benfica, Barcelona and Bayern Munich. Those clubs are all powerhouses of European football, including a UCL Semi-Finalist (Barcelona) and finalist (Bayern Munich) in this year’s UCL campaign. This year, Chelsea couldn’t even get out of the group stages of the UCL. They were destroyed 3-0 by Juventus in Turin, lost 2-1 against Shakhtar in Donetsk, and ended up being dumped into the Europa League by virtue of a ridiculous UEFA rule.
But then of course, Chelsea went on to win the Europa League. So that is impressive, right? That is worthy of serious recognition and celebration?
Well, how much of an achievement was it really? Chelsea beat Sparta Prague, Steaua Bucure?ti, Rubin Kazan, Basel, and finally Benfica to win the Europa League this year. With the exception of Benfica, you would expect Chelsea to win all of those ties comfortably.
I accept that you can only beat the teams that are put in front of you, and to be fair Chelsea did that. I merely wish to point out that what Chelsea have done is not really worth gloating about. With all due respect to the Europa League teams, they don’t even compare to the scalps that Chelsea collected during their Champions League winning run in 2012. Pride shouldn’t really be a word used around Stamford Bridge in the next couple of months.
The only person that can really be proud of Chelsea’s accomplishments this season is Rafa Benitez. He took over a club without any spirit, and was tasked with bringing them back to life. They had already limped out of the Champions League, they were underperforming in the league and the fans didn’t trust him to get the job done. Well, Rafa did better than anybody could have expected in the circumstances, and he will walk away from Stamford Bridge with his head held high because of it (and possibly with a few job offers too).
It is important for Chelsea to stay grounded right now after Europa League success. They won a trophy, yes. They deserve, to an extent, to celebrate that victory. But they can’t get carried away just because they won a second-rate competition that Fulham, no disrespect to them, almost won a couple of years ago. If you scan the back pages of the papers this week you will read about how Chelsea are now part of a select group of teams that have won all three European tournaments. You will read about how impressive it is that the Blues have won back to back European titles.
Well, that is wrong. There is nothing impressive about decline. Chelsea still have a lot of work to do if they want to return to their past excellence. They have serious questions at the striker position that need addressing soon, the teams iconic players in Terry and Lampard are looking at their 30th birthdays in the rear-view mirror, and the first half display in the Europa League final suggests that the team has no idea how to dominate on the big stage. Don’t make the mistake of thinking that a trophy in John Terry‘s hand makes Chelsea a success story, because right now they aren’t.
That doesn’t mean they are far off being a success story though. There is more than one silver lining to the grey cloud that was this season for Chelsea. Eden Hazard and Juan Mata played at an elite level and show no signs of slowing down. They won the Europa League. And the greatest silver lining of them all takes the form of one who is gravitating his way towards Stamford Bridge as we speak. One who will not tolerate settling for the consolation prize. One who will bring glory back to this once powerhouse of English football. One who will be cherished. One who will be worshipped. They call him the Special One.
