Matchday three is imminent in UEFA’s second-best club competition. Chelsea face BATE Borisov, their most agricultural and manufacturing opponent yet in the Europa League.
After a late equaliser by Ross Barkley in the weekend’s Premier League game against Manchester United, Maurizio Sarri’s side remain unbeaten in all competitions this term. In Europe, the Blues have shown a consistency… if nothing else.
The first two games Chelsea played in this season’s competition both ended in 1-0 victories. You could argue a win’s a win, but supporters have felt short-changed by Sarri in more ways than one… goal. As has been well-documented, particularly on this website, Sarri’s reluctance to use any of Chelsea’s youth in this minor cup competition has been uninspiring, to say the least.
The assumption must be that nothing will change in that respect with BATE Borisov the visitors to Stamford Bridge this week. Sarri’s rotation for the match will once again centre around giving game time to the senior squad members who don’t feature in the Premier League. Whilst we could all have an educated guess as to who will be in the starting XI, less generally comes to the fore when considering the team from Belarus.
Starting with the real need-to-knows: “BATE” stands for Borisov-Automobile-Tractor-Electronics. Like a lot of teams coming out the former Soviet Union, they were effectively borne out of a “works” team in 1973. Based in the city of Barysaw, just 74 kilometres north-east of the capital, Minsk, the “tractor boys” (not the ones from Ipswich) play at the Borisov Arena, capacity just over 13,000.
Chelsea have never played in Belarus, but in BATE they are coming up against the country’s top team, having won the Vysheyshaya Liga for the last twelve seasons. With the harsh Eastern European winter about to kick in, BATE’s domestic season is coming towards its finale. Once again they look like clinching another title.
This creates a strange anomaly for the club. Because the Belarusian domestic season runs from April until the end of November, the club will still be playing games in the Europa League after their season is over. Unfortunately, there will be no mad rush to the beach for the tractor boys.
As Chelsea appointed a new manager in the summer, so did the Belarusians. Unlike Sarri who had the luxury of a pre-season to settle in, 37-year old Alyaksey Baga came in during a mid-season blip for the club he once played for. His favoured formation matches up with Sarri’s 4-3-3 ,unless the opposition is strong, in which case it changes to 4-5-1. Therefore, expect the latter at Stamford Bridge.
The Tractor Boys have a total market value just below that of Ruben Loftus-Cheek. The young Englishman actually managed same game time in Chelsea’s last Europa League encounter against MOL Vidi FC. Hopefully, his Maurizio Sarri education continues on Thursday.
In the UEFA rankings, BATE are in 69th place just below Premier League under-achievers Newcastle United and a couple of places above the team unable to get a song out of Ross Barkley, Everton. Chelsea, meanwhile, are still in 20th position.
A couple of points of reference for Blues fans is how did BATE do against Qarabag, and have any English teams played them recently? First, Chelsea convincingly beat Qarabag 6-0 at Stamford Bridge last tear. BATE played the Azerbaijanis in this season’s Champions League qualification games, and made it through 2-1 on aggregate. Second, Arsenal played the Belarusians in the Europa League last season. Across the two games Arsenal scored 10 and conceded twice. Olivier Giroud scored a goal in each game.
Whilst Chelsea have eased their way to those two scintillating 1-0 victories, BATE beat MOL Vidi FC (the boys from Dave) 2-0 and lost 4-1 against PAOK Salonika. With Chelsea sitting proudly on top of group L, BATE go into this double-header against Chelsea in third place.
Like Chelsea’s first two games in this season’s Europa League, this one is eminently winnable. All the signs point towards a Stamford Bridge goal-fest. Whether Maurizio Sarri feels that remains to be seen (he probably doesn’t). Victory seems to be enough for him. Perhaps, more importantly, it’s (yet) another opportunity for either Alvaro Morata or Olivier Giroud to own that goal-fest. With neither striker hitting the goalscoring heights of Eden Hazard they still have plenty of work to do in their efforts to impress their Italian manager.
The bottom line, though, is if Chelsea win – by one goal or ten – they will all but seal qualification for the knock-out phase of the competition.