While Chelsea return to the Champions League on Tuesday night, Qarabag FK enter a new era of their club’s history. European nights like this carry on the magic the FA Cup once held.
As the Champions League anthem plays and the grounds crew flutters the round flag at midfield, Chelsea will stand in a line behind their mascots feeling a sense of relief and restoration. After a year of idle midweek nights that came to feel like an exile, the Blues take their place as champions of England alongside their fellow champions from across Europe. For those on the pitch and in the stands wearing blue, it is the homecoming game.
On the other side of the arch spanning midfield, Qarabag FK will hear the anthem play just for them. They are no longer facing Samtredia, Sheriff or Copenhagen. Nor is this a late-week Europa League match against Tottenham Hotspur, their only other London opponent. They are at the home of Chelsea. The four-time defending Azerbaijani champions against the five-time defending English champions and 2012 champions of Europe.
In recent years the prominence of European competition and the widening disparity between the Premier League and the rest of the English pyramid have reduced the role of the FA Cup. Midweek domestic matches do not sparkle the way they once did.
Even mid-table or bottom-half teams will rotate heavily against a League Two side. Those lower tier sides look forward to the pay-out from visiting a Premier League club more than they do the chance to write a Cinderella tale. It’s all fun and games for Sutton United and Lincoln City, but then the quarterfinals kick in and the ride is over.
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Chelsea learned in 2015 that there are no guarantees in the FA Cup. Bradford City produced one of those magical evenings under the lights at Stamford Bridge that will live with their club for generations. The Blues dusted off the defeat, then went about winning the Premier League.
Exiting the FA Cup, even to a team two levels below, had no consequence for Chelsea. No one got sacked. Fans did not bemoan what could have been. Sponsors did not look for an early termination. No one cared that Chelsea was one cup shy of the “domestic treble.”
The magic of the FA Cup came from both teams wanting the same thing – the win today, the trophy in May – and the hint that, on a cold Wednesday night somewhere in the Midlands, either could take the former and step closer to the latter. Now, though, one team goes in blase about the win and the other expects no more than a one-night stand with glory. The media turns out goofy country bumpkin stories about Arsenal playing at a ground with only three bathroom stalls, but then decries Wayne Shaw for soiling the game with “pie-gate.”
The Champions League has moved in to that special role in the footballing week. Chelsea want this win as much as Qarabag, and need it even more. The game has meaning for both teams, and they will play for it.
This will be football, a proper match deserving of two champions. Chelsea will rotate their squad but not their mentality or expectations. Charly Musonda will not get a free pass because he is 20 years old, and Willy Caballero will not get one because he is 35. And Qarabag’s Shahrudin Mahammadaliyev certainly will not be eating a pie on the bench.
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Welcome the magic back to midweek nights at Stamford Bridge: the magic of the Champions League.