Allan Prosser: Leadership of world football is more difficult if your team is a failing entity
MAN ON A MISSION: The vision of Real Madrid president Florentino Pere rests on the €600m redevelopment of the Bernabeu and the establishment of the Super League.
It's only 18,248 days since a competitive European fixture was last decided between Chelsea and Real Madrid.
For the mathematically-inclined, that is 49 years, 11 months, and 15 days. For statistical nit-pickers, this calculation also ignores the outcome of the 1998 Super Cup (1-0 to Chelsea) because in the grand scheme of things that is not a proper trophy (unless you are José Mourinho who counts everything).
Half a century ago the Cup Winners Cup was the second most important club competition in Europe and lifting it was disputed by powerhouse sides including Barcelona, AC Milan, Manchester United, and Bayern. But the expansion of the Champions League in 1997, allowing access to more than one team from the major leagues, heralded its rapid decline, a precedent that supporters of the newly constructed Champions League with its 36-team format would do well to note. More does not necessarily mean better.
That 1970 Madrid side were known as the “Ye-Ye” team because their new generation players wore their hair slightly longer and four of their young scamps posed as the Beatles in a photo shoot for Real’s house newspaper . They were simpler times and hair length was a sign of anarchy in the dog days of austere Francoist Spain, even if it only just touched the shirt collars.
Chelsea’s 2-1 victory over them in Athens — in a replay after a 1-1 draw — was memorable for an outstanding goal from the Hampstead-born Irish centre-half John Dempsey whose fulminating volley into the roof of the net put the Blues two up. Dempsey, whose mother came from Kildare and father from Waterford, was one of the earliest players to benefit from the parentage selection rule for Ireland.
Dempsey, now 75, became a care worker specialising in autism after his retirement from soccer. For a short time, he had been manager of Dundalk following the successful regime of Jim McLaughlin before his contract was terminated “by mutual agreement”. The job, wrote the in 1984, was “never going to be a bed of roses.”
On the bench for Chelsea in Athens was Paddy Mulligan, a signing from Shamrock Rovers, who was able to show the Ye-Ye’s and the Generalissimo a proper Beatles haircut when he got onto the pitch for the final 90 seconds of the first match. It was in the 90th minute that Real Madrid equalised. “Zoco went Socco” said the TV commentator. Oh how we laughed.
The exigencies of early 70s charter travel meant that thousands had to return home, missing the replay two days later on Friday. Shed legend has it that some never made it back and lost spirits from the World’s End Estate can still be found, Odysseus-like, wandering the tavernas of the Plaka and Syntagma Square. On moonlit evenings the lilting tones of “We will follow the Chelsea”, remixed for pan pipes and bouzouki, waft down from the Acropolis.
The surprising rarity of this English-Iberian fixture in an era where Chelsea have qualified for European competition every year since 1997 and have appeared in the Champions League in 17 seasons (tonight is their 180th match in the competition) adds a piquancy which goes beyond the ESL dreams of Real Madrid president and civil engineer Florentino Pérez.
In fact, a showery May day in West London might be his equivalent of a cold night in Stoke after Chelsea became the first of the Super League rebels to break rank after some 1,000 supporters blocked the Fulham Road two weeks ago.
Real Madrid are prime movers in the conspiracy and the basic Perez position, founded on what he believes are binding contracts, is “we haven’t gone away you know”.
He is backed by many of the members, or , of the Madridistas and more than a dozen official supporters clubs have come out in favour of him. While Madrid remain under serious financial pressure they are still planning to spend big this summer and talks have already taken place with Erling Harland. They also covet Kylian Mbappe whose contract with PSG expires next year. Defender David Alaba seems destined to join them on a free from Bayern Munich. So sympathy for their penury might be confined to the playing of the world’s smallest violin borrowed from Reservoir Dogs’ Mr Pink.
But defeat at the hands of Thomas Tuchel tonight has reputational and financial consequences for the 74-year-old who has served as president of the biggest club in the world for 18 years in total, although they are unlikely to include a challenge to his primacy given the personal wealth required for the job (Perez has a fortune valued at €2bn) and the fact that he is secure in post until 2025.
The Perez vision rests on the €600m redevelopment of the Bernabeu and the establishment of the Super League. Leadership of world football is more difficult if your team is a failing entity. Departure from the Champions League is, perversely, more of a setback than failure to win La Liga where Real currently sit two points off Atlético and with a tricky home encounter with fourth-placed Sevilla to come next Sunday evening.
Relations between the two clubs have not exactly been stand-offish even though they have not met frequently on the field of play since that match at the Karaiskakis Stadium in Pireaus, home of Olympiacos.
Perez it was who foolishly authorised the sale of Claude Makelele to Chelsea in 2003. Makelele is currently a youth team coach at Stamford Bridge. Chelsea transferred Arjen Robben and Eden Hazard to the Spanish capital while being themselves let down twice in their pursuit of Luka Modric and Robinho. Other transactions between the clubs include Alvaro Morata, Michael Essien, and Ricardo Carvalho. Mateo Kovacic who provides some of the steel in the Chelsea midfield has been struggling with a hamstring injury, missed the first leg, and may not make a starting place tonight. Both sides have been managed by José Mourinho and Carlo Ancelotti.
In goal tonight for Real Madrid will be Thibaut Courtois whose departure “to be closer to his children” left a lingering sense of grievance at Stamford Bridge. The Belgian moved at short notice after the 2018 World Cup where he was chosen for the Golden Gloves award and following his refusal to return to London for pre-season training. Chelsea had hurriedly to find a replacement first choice keeper and signed Kepa Arrizabalaga on a seven-year contract for €80m from Bilbao.
The Basque’s loss of confidence and form had a significant impact on the regimes of both Maurizio Sarri and Frank Lampard and he recorded the worst save to shot percentage in Premier League history. He was eventually replaced this season by Senegal’s Edouard Mendy whose cousin Ferland is left-back for Real Madrid.
One of the challenges for Tuchel has been to keep Arrizabalaga motivated and encouraged and it is a sign of astute management that he has made him Chelsea’s first choice for the FA Cup run with a potential Wembley showcase to come in a fortnight.
Chelsea’s redoubtable women have already reached the WCL final in Istanbul on May 16 and their ebullient coach Emma Hayes says she dreams of the men joining for an unprecedented double.
After the machinations of Perez and the Londoners’ swift withdrawal from his pan-European project Chelsea find themselves in the unusual position of being a marginally less unpopular choice for neutrals to get through to the final in Istanbul (thereby diluting the memory for the Blues faithful of the Luis Garcia ‘ghost goal’ in 2005). Equally there will be no shortage of supporters quoting Mercutio from Romeo and Juliet: “a plague on both your houses.”
The prospect of another Champions League final thousands of miles away in the largest city of an ancient Eastern empire. The certainty that any player red carded tonight will be suspended and may have to sit in the stands at the Atatürk Olympic Stadium in their match kit while their team-mates deliver the goods on May 29.
What could possibly go wrong?
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