The summer with a World Cup should have been calm and collected. But Chelsea do not do calm or collected as they have turned themselves into a soap opera.
Soap operas are poorly produced midday television shows that live off the absurd. Random stories are put together and stuffed with plot twists for sheer shock value and ridiculousness. That sounds an awful lot like Chelsea this summer.
It all started way back when Antonio Conte was first reported to be fed up with the board. He was looking for a way out, but the club just kept pulling him back in. The season past is the result.
So Chelsea started looking for replacements. It was largely expected that the Blues would sack Conte soon after the FA Cup final. Maurizio Sarri was the most heavily linked. With his release clause, he should have been an easy acquisition.
Plot twist; Chelsea did not feel like paying the release clause. Napoli replaced Sarri with Carlo Ancelotti and moved on with their lives but the Blues were unwilling to do their part. Sarri was left at the alter as Chelsea waited for him to do the dirty work.
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As the process dragged on, other targets were reported. Chelsea was looking at all their options before they settled down for the big TV special managerial appointment. Laurent Blanc was the one most strongly linked with Slavisa Jokanovic getting plenty of love too.
Blanc was eager and the Blues supposedly had him all lined up. Except, plot twist, Chelsea was not ready to commit. Their heart was still set on Sarri as he tried to navigate the legal battlefield on his own.
Blanc was put firmly in the friend zone and was left pining for a club that was only willing to settle for him. Sarri was, and remained, Chelsea’s true love.
Enter Zinedine Zidane who added yet another plot twist to the mix. Zidane abruptly quit Real Madrid just days after lifting an unprecedented third Champions League trophy in a row. Suddenly, Real Madrid was the most eligible club in the world.
That is where Conte reenters the story line. Conte had been waiting patiently for Chelsea to sack him. Then, and only then, could he be free (while collecting a sizable and well earned severance). But Real Madrid would come calling, and who can say no to Real? Conte apparently.
Conte went on and about honoring his contract. And when the one club came along that could whisk him away, he said no. That was perhaps the most unexpected plot twist.
Now Chelsea is stuck in a relationship that they want out of. The object of their affections has been left to free himself from his relationship alone. Blanc is somewhere staring at the phone and hoping it is the Blues to say “we pick you”. Real Madrid has their pick of anyone and Conte will just be another fling that failed to amount to anything for them.
Aurelio De Laurentiis, Napoli’s owner, could not have written a more soap opera-like story for his films if he tried. Chelsea put themselves into Napoli’s show, and now they must wait for the shocking season finale. Something that could have been avoided weeks ago had the Blues just paid the release clause on Sarri.
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But that would have made for a poor story. And the thing about soap operas is that no one wants them or even asks for them, but it is hard to look away. Chelsea is stuck in a soap opera of their own making and all will be hoping that the current story arc ends sooner rather than later.