Chelsea’s Secret Strength: Its White Players

With the soccer season here in Europe nearing its climax, the top story must be the revival of Chelsea’s fortunes. With one game to play in the Premiership they are now level on points with high-scoring http://www.wvwnews.net/story.php?id=776 United, and can still become champions if United drop points in next Sunday’s away game to Wigan. If United wins, however, their vastly superior goal difference will easily ensure that Sir Alex Ferguson takes a record-breaking tenth Premiership title.

Chelsea have a more realistic chance of ruining United’s season later this month, when the two Premiership teams face each other in the UEFA Champions League final in Moscow. This must be the top honor for both clubs, despite the intense competitiveness of the Premiership.

A few weeks ago, Chelsea, despite putting in dour, defensive performances, were looking jaded and in decline. Goals were rare and their top striker, the Ivorian Didier Drogba, was clearly off form. Grant’s attempt to pep up his strike force in January by signing another Black player, Bolton Wanderers’ high-scoring Nicolas Anelka, for a reported 15 million pounds ($29 million), had clearly backfired as Anelka failed time and again to get on the score sheet.After losing to London rivals Tottenham Hotspur in the Carling League Cup final on February 24th, demands for manager Avram Grant to step down accelerated and even reached the point of occasional death threats against the Israeli-born coach. Things looked even worse on March 8th when Chelsea were knocked out of the FA Cup by lowly Barnsley. But Chelsea were already starting to show signs of improving, and, soon after, beat both Arsenal and Manchester United in the Premiership and knocked Liverpool out of the UEFA Champions League, which has been dominated by Premiership clubs this year.

What has been behind this remarkable recovery? Media reports would like you to think that it has been largely down to the form of its key Black players, like the Ghanaian midfielder Michael Essien, and especially the return to form of striker Didier Drogba, who scored twice in both recent victories against Arsenal and Liverpool. Although this has been important, it is not nearly as important as the contribution of the team’s White players.

Although Chelsea were in a comparative slump earlier in the season, they still did enough to keep within touching distance of Manchester United in both the Premiership and Champion’s League. This was largely because of their defensive strength, based on a trio of White players: world class Czech goalkeeper Petr Cech and the tigerish central defensive pairing of the Portuguese Ricardo Carvalho and team captain John Terry. In the Premiership, Chelsea are the leading defensive team having conceded only 25 goals in 37 league games, in 18 of which they kept clean sheets. In cup competitions there have been another 11 clean sheets.

In attack, despite the headlines and media focus, Chelsea’s White players have also made a much greater contribution. In January and March, when the team was struggling, Chelsea scored 16 goals in all competitions. Two were own goals by the opposition, while the remaining 14 were split evenly between Black and White players. Since March, however, when the team’s form radically improved, White players have been leading the way. In March, April, and May, the team has scored 35 goals. Two were own goals, but Chelsea’s much vaunted Black strike force only scored 13 goals compared to 20 from White players. The truth is that Chelsea’s revival since March 1st has been built mainly on White defense and the goalscoring and the all-round performances of players like English midfielder Frank Lampard (8 goals), German midfielder Michael Ballack (6 goals), and English winger Joe Cole (4 goals).

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2008-05-09