GROUP D: Chelsea v Porto:CARLO ANCELOTTI must have felt he had meandered through a series of pre-season friendlies rather than racking up five consecutive wins in Premier League matches. He would not have been surprised by an emphasis on the Champions League that ran far beyond the fact that Chelsea's campaign starts tonight against Porto at Stamford Bridge. Everyone else supposes he was appointed to seize Europe's leading trophy.
The Italian did everything he could to make light of that objective. “They asked me to win the Champions League, the Premier League, the FA Cup, the League Cup,” he joked. Humour, of course, did not divert the questioning. Ancelotti is rightly admiring of a club that has reached the semi-finals in five of the last six campaigns, losing on penalties to Manchester United in the 2008 final.
It is reasonable enough for him to say that Chelsea have mainly lacked a little good fortune, but he has not been employed as a lucky charm. Ancelotti would rather escape a fixation with the tournament and suggested that Roman Abramovich, the club’s owner, was not obsessive about it when offering him the post.
“We didn’t speak about winning the Champions League,” Ancelotti recalled. “He chose me because he liked the way my last team played.” Abramovich, of course, was probably enamoured of Milan’s two triumphs in the Champions League since the manager landed just one Serie A title over eight years at San Siro.
Ancelotti has grounds for mocking the owner’s supposed fixation with the Champions League. He could claim, with justice, that Abramovich would have been overjoyed to retain the services of Guus Hiddink, even if the caretaker’s side was beaten narrowly by Barcelona in the semi-finals last season before he reverted full-time to his job as Russia manager.
It is Ancelotti’s aim to maintain calm. “We want to arrive in the final,” he said, “not to win it.” This formulation would seem utterly bizarre were it not for the fact that his countryman Fabio Capello talks in those terms about England’s prospects at the 2010 World Cup. Maybe this is a joint initiative by the Italians.
Ancelotti will be without Didier Drogba and Jose Bosingwa tonight. Both are starting their suspensions for misconduct after that semi-final with Barcelona. In addition, injuries to Deco and others mean Ancelotti may have three youngsters on the bench, in the shape of Jeffrey Bruma, Fabio Borini and Sam Hutchinson.
The Chelsea manager spoke with respect of Porto, who are chasing a fifth consecutive league title. That effort can only benefit from a new signing, the Colombian Falcao, who has scored in each of his four matches to date. The coach, Jesualdo Ferreira, is, however, rebuilding his line-up and that ought to help Ancelotti get off to the imposing start expected of him.
