Chelsea: Maurizio Sarri’s tenure so far parallels Luiz Felipe Scolari’s

Maurizio Sarri’s time at Chelsea so far is drawing a lot of parallels to Luiz Felipe Sccolari’s. Will it end the same way as it did a decade ago?

Beauty is in the eye of the beholder. Or at least it used to be. On Twitter, beauty is defined by those who shout loudest and those who have the most listeners. It appears Roman Abramovich and the Blues took advice from the most vocal section of Chelsea Twitter when they pursued and appointed Maurizio Sarri as their new manager.

Cherry-picked clippings of Sarri’s Napoli side went viral on social media and left Chelsea Twitter salivating at the prospect of the Blues playing that way. It was beautiful football. It was Sarriball. But for some, it was deja vu.

This has happened before. The average Chelsea Twitter loudmouth may not remember, but there are parallels between what everyone is seeing now with Sarri and something the Blues tried a decade ago.

Abramovich has never tried to hide his desire of watching his team play beautiful football. It was this desire that led him to the door of one Luiz Felipe Scolari in 2008. Scolari had an immense footballing pedigree, having won the World Cup with Brazil in 2002 and led Portugal to the finals of Euro 2004. His teams also played a style that was pleasing to the eye, which is what Abramovich was craving at Chelsea.

Scolari joined the Blues in July 2008 and started putting his stamp on the squad. This is where some interesting similarities emerge with Sarri’s current regime. The Chelsea side of 2008 was crying out for a playmaker, according to most pundits. Scolari tried to fix the problem by bringing in one of his old boys from the Portugal national team, Deco. The diminutive Portuguese started like a train, scoring free kicks and laying down assists, but the wheels came off as soon as other teams figured out how to stop him. Sound familiar? Of course it does.

Jorginho was recruited as an expensive welcome gift for Sarri in 2018. The Italian midfielder (I refuse to use the word ‘regista’) started racking up passes by the hundreds before Tottenham stifled him and laid down the blueprint to stop Jorginho (and as a result, stop Chelsea). That blueprint has been used by almost every opponent since, leaving Jorginho’s blistering start a distant speck in the rear-view mirror.

Both sides, the 2008 Chelsea and 2018 Chelsea, had a great start in the league, too. In fact, Scolari’s Chelsea had a better record after 24 games than Sarri’s Jorginho-powered Sarriballers.

But the similarities don’t end there. Scolari did not get on with future Chelsea legend, Didier Drogba. The striker was regularly left out of the side and Scolari even tried to swap him for the Brazilian, Adriano. Yes, in an alternate universe, Chelsea would have swapped Drogba for Adriano and watched him balloon into Adriano grande while destroying his own career in the process.

Cut to 2018, when Sarri wanted the club to get him Gonzalo Higuain. That move did not materialize in the summer, leaving Alvaro Morata’s already fragile confidence in tatters. Morata does not have the strength of personality that Drogba possessed, who dug in despite knowing the new manager would rather have him warm the bench or sit in the stands. Now that Morata is gone and Sarri has his first choice striker leading the line, Chelsea have seemingly put all their eggs in the Sarrismo basket (deviating from the Scolari timeline).

From here, Sarri could still go the Scolari way and find his stubbornness and ineptitude rewarded with a sacking. Or he could finally turn things around and win a cup and finish in the top four. Realistically, the safe money is on Sarri following Scolari as another failed Chelsea experiment in beautiful football.

And please, do not bring up the five goal win against the worst side in the division as some sort of vindication of Sarri’s Plan A. Also, as George Perry has already pointed out, Higuain is not the first Chelsea striker to raise expectations with his initial displays and then turn out to be a dud.

February will be a massive month for Sarri and Chelsea, as it was for Big Phil. The jury may be out for now on the Italian, but the verdict will be a familiar one.