/ 16 April 2004

Supporting the blues

So now we’re all Chelsea fans. Blues brothers. Having seen Benni McCarthy and Porto put Manchester United out in the last 16 and Claudio Ranieri’s men upset Arsenal at Highbury in the quarterfinals, Chelsea are now all England have left in the Champions League, perhaps the world’s greatest club football competition.

Unless you count the Chesham Sunday League Royal Oak Subsidiary Cup, won by my own side, the Three Pigeons, last Sunday. I digress (though I can e-mail you a picture of my winners’ medal should you so wish).

It has been an astonishing year in Europe. When I say astonishing I mean it keeps throwing up games that make you sit back in the comfy chair at home and shout ‘F*** ME!” at the top of your voice.

This is not good for neighbourly bonhomie, the cat’s heart or young children. I have been told to watch the next game down at the pub. Suits me. Sometimes, when you see sides like Milan and Real Madrid turned over, you just have to let it out. God understands.

I mean, what was all that about last week? Milan, the holders with a 4-1 first-leg advantage, go to spluttering Spaniards Deportivo La Coruna and get stuffed 4-0. They have the best defence in the world. It wasn’t possible. Real Madrid and their galacticos, 4-2 up after the first leg, go to Monaco (average crowd about 7 000, the same as Tranmere Rovers) and slump 3-1.

See what I mean? F….

These two results, allied with Arsenal’s 2-1 defeat against Chelsea, have left footballing aficionades reeling. Many of us know the meaning of life, several have solved the problem of travelling at the speed of light, but even football writers can’t explain what the hell happened in the Champions League quarterfinals.

Now we have Monaco playing Chelsea (first leg at Stade Louis II on Tuesday) and the next day, Deportivo go to Porto, the Portuguese champions who sneaked through the quarters quietly against Olympique Lyonnais.

L’Equipe, perhaps the world’s greatest sporting newspaper, hailed the quarterfinals as ‘a refreshing wave”, which is probably more polite than my description, but far too arty farty.

Here’s a paragraph, loosely translated, from their coverage of Monaco’s win: ‘In these moments, football suddenly seems to become pure again and you run out of superlatives. The players themselves were surprised. They beat Real Madrid in the quarterfinals of the Champions League. This great Real Madrid, this team of galacticos. ‘The biggest team in the world,’ they kept repeating, trying to convince themselves that this achievement was possible. They did it. They won a match that will be talked about for years to come, and in doing so wrote their name in legend.”

Classical stuff. Monaco play on top of a car park, their pitch is dreadful, fans are sparse, the ground looks like it’s made out of papier maché. But there they are in the last four of the Champions League. And they got there with a bit of help from Fernando Morientes, the on-loan Real Madrid striker.

F…. Sorry.

Chelsea, with £133-million invested in new players by Russian billionaire Roman Abramovich, are now the biggest club left in the tournament. It would be nice at this point to make some sort of prediction, to indicate who is most likely to get to the final next month. But after those quarterfinals, how can anyone predict anything?

We’re sitting here now, trying to name just one Chelsea player in the myriad stars who will definitely play next week. Frank Lampard in midfield I guess, John Terry at the back, but up front it’s hard to predict even one definite starter. They’ve got Adrian Mutu, Hernan Crespo, Jimmy Floyd Hasselbaink and Eidur Gudjohnsen to choose from. And they’ve got Mikhael Forssel and Carlton Cole out on loan too.

But despite all that talent, they still contrived to pick up just one point out of six over the Easter weekend. I honestly thought they’d grab all six and push Arsenal all the way.

But now perhaps they are focused on the Champions League. And rightly so.

It’s the biggest of the big. If Ranieri wins it, they won’t be able to sack him, can’t possibly bring in some big-name geezer from Italy or Spain.

I keep saying how nice the guy is, how honest and straightforward. Here are his comments after the shock 3-2 defeat at Aston Villa on Easter Monday.

‘I thought that if I put on fresh legs then we could run more than Aston Villa but it didn’t work out. I’m used to people who criticise. It’s disappointing but we must focus.”

Too right, Claudio.

I can’t say who’ll win in France on Tuesday, or whether Chelsea will emerge victorious over two legs. But I can say that Ranieri will be a credit to his club, win or lose. And that he has already done enough to keep his job in the eyes of everybody except, perhaps, former Manchester United CEO Peter Kenyon, who apparently feels it is his job to appoint a new, flashy manager to prove his power

at Chelsea.

I think he’s wrong. And that’s why I’m backing Chelsea to go all the way. No logic. Just hope. And yes, on Tuesday night, I’ll be in the comfy chair at the White Hart with my mates shouting ‘Vok my” (it’s apparently less disturbing in a foreign language) with the best of them. See you at the final in Gothenburg on May 19. In blue.