Preview: DC United vs. Chelsea FC, July 28 at 8:00pm, FedEx Field Landover, MD
- By Joseph Schoenbauer Tue, July 26, 2005
Background
DC United has played many friendlies in their 10-year history, against storied teams such as Boca Juniors, Leeds United, Newcastle United, Tottenham Hotspurs and Bayer Leverkusen. But in today’s day and age, Chelsea is by far and away the biggest team of them all.
To call Chelsea’s recent history anything less than a revolution would be a giant understatement. Just over two years ago they were 80 million pounds (British currency) in debt and on the verge of bankruptcy. Then, almost out of the blue, Roman Abramovich, the Russian oligarch valued at around 10 billion pounds, ghosted in to clear all of the debts and to purchase the 60 million pounds of club shares in one giant swoop. The colossal transformation of Chelsea from pretenders to contenders had just begun. In Chelsea’s first season under Abramovich’s ownership they acquired 12 new players for over 100 million pounds. Despite this amount spent, then head coach Claudio “Tinkerman” Ranieri could only guide the team to a second place finish in the EPL and to the semifinals of the Champions League, which was deemed not good enough by the Russian. As money was never really a part of the question, Abramovich quickly paid Ranieri to leave and brought in Jose Mourinho from FC Porto, who in just two years had led his team to the Portuguese league title twice, the Portuguese Cup, the UEFA Cup, and the UEFA Champions League, making it the most successful club team in all of Europe over the past two years. With Jose Mourinho as newly appointed coach, Abramovich acquired 7 more players for a total of around 90 million pounds, taking his spending after just a year, that includes wages, pay-offs and a new training ground, to over 400 million pounds.
And for the 2004-2005 season, the money spent paid off. Chelsea marched their way to their first league championship since 1955, and also won the Carling Cup. Along the way they broke the record for least goals conceded in a season ever (just 15), as well as most points won in a season (95). They had emphatically risen to the challenge of the best teams in England in Arsenal and Manchester United. Dramatically, they lost to Liverpool FC, another English team, in the semifinals of the Champions League and were unable to complete the “treble”, the term coined for any team winning three competitions in a single season.
To give you an idea of the difference in DC United and Chelsea’s players wages, a player such as Frank Lampard will make as much in one day as DC United’s Shawn Kuykendall will make over the entire year. Freddy Adu, the highest paid player on DC United, makes around 500,000 US dollars a year counting bonuses. A good number of Chelsea teammates eclipse that margin in around a month’s time.
Form Guide
The reigning English Premier League champions Chelsea have been in preseason for just under a month now and are well on course to being fully fit when their season begins August 13th. In preparation, the London club has trained in England, Portugal, and now the United States. They have played three pre-season friendlies so far, defeating Wycombe Wanderers of the English lower divisions 5-1, Benfica of Portugal 1-0, and most recently AC Milan of Italy 1-0, which took place in Foxboro, Massachussettes.
After playing DC United on Thursday, they travel again to New York where they will face AC Milan for the second time. Their preseason will commence with the Charity Shield match against last years FA Cup winners Arsenal on August 7th.
DC United enters the All-Star break on a high note. In their last three games, they have defeated San Jose 3-0 at home, tied Kansas City 1-1 away, and defeated LA 1-0 in LA thanks to an injury time cracker of a goal from Freddy Adu. From these results, DC United has moved into third place again, equal on 29 points with Kansas City, but with less games played.
Team News
Chelsea: The 2005-2006 season preparations appear to look a lot like last season and it is a certainty that at the end of the year Chelsea will be competing for a number of trophies. Over the summer they have sold Mateja Kezman, Alexei Smertin, and Scott Parker, who all played very minor roles last season despite being brought in for a combined 18 million pounds, and have re-loaned Juan Veron to Inter Milan. The squad has been reinforced by the return of forwards Hernan Crespo and Carlton Cole from loan deals, as well as the purchases of left back Asier Del Horno (8 million pounds), and midfielders Shaun Wright-Phillips (21 million pounds) and Lassana Diarra. Despite the apparent strength in depth of the squad, papers in England and around Europe are still heavy with rumors over possible purchases of Lyon midfielder Michael Essien for 35 millions pounds, and even Andriy Shevchenko of AC Milan for an astounding 60 million pounds!
In all of their aforementioned preseason friendlies, Chelsea have used a large number of substitutions in order to get everyone best prepared and in shape. Regardless, with a team so deep there isn’t a noticeable drop off in quality when new players come in.
DC United: Santino Quaranta and Ben Olsen should be back in the team to face Chelsea after returning from the US Gold Cup triumph with the National team. Both players appeared as second half substitutes in the final against Panama, and Quaranta stepped up to score the US’s first goal in the penalty shoot out. Steve Guppy, who has been sidelined for quite some time now, is set to part ways with DC United as it looks like he can’t find a spot on the team anymore and his wages are far too high to pay him to sit on the bench. Alecko Eskandarian is still a doubt, while Bryan Namoff is definitely out.
Probable Starting 11’s
DC United (3-5-2): Rimando; Wilson, Boswell, Prideaux; Gros, Simms, Olsen, Gomez, Quaranta; Moreno, Adu
Chelsea (4-3-3): Cudicini; Del Horno, Gallas, Carvalho, Ferreira; Jarosik, Diarra, Tiago; Robben, Crespo, Duff
Prediction
Even with preseason preparations and a mass of substitutions Chelsea should be able to overwhelm DC United. However, it’s important to remember a game is always played with an equal 11 players against 11, and just as Tokyo Verde and the LA Galaxy showed Real Madrid that they can play, expect DC United to show flashes of ability during the 90 minutes. Chelsea 2 DC United 0