Chelsea’s roller coaster seven years since the Champions League triumph

It has been seven years since Chelsea finally lifted the Champions League. The past seven years have been a roller coaster full of stops and starts.

They had no right to be there yet they had every right. The Blues should not have gotten past Napoli, but they did. They should not have stopped the then best team in the world Barcelona but they did. And they should not have held their own against Bayern Munich in their own stadium but they did.

Petr Cech clawed the Blues back into the driver’s seat of the penalty shootout. Didier Drogba stepped up as if he was on a Sunday stroll. At the time, it was to be his last kick as a Chelsea player. He planted it into the net with one of the calmest and coolest penalties ever seen. Chelsea, after years of reaching for the Champions League finally achieved their goal despite the odds.

The period that followed was supposed to be a time of consolidation. Having finally gotten the trophy Roman Abramovich wanted, the Blues were supposed to build into a side that would make even Barcelona envious. Instead, the proceeding seven years have been full of stop and starts.

It all started with a simple tweet from the young Belgian Eden Hazard; he was joining the Champions League winners. He was supposed to be the center piece of a new Chelsea commanded by Roberto Di Matteo as the squad became a true force.

But it unfortunately did not happen that way. Di Matteo may have won the FA Cup and the Champions League, but the sixth placed finish hinted at the side needing more to go on in the 2012/2013 season. The Blues fell into a third placed finish in the Champions League group and became the first champion to fall into the Europa League. A sputtering league campaign with the Blues falling behind sealed Di Matteo’s fate.

Rafa Benitez took his place to much anger from the Chelsea faithful. He always wanted the job permanently but it was never to be. Under his command, the Blues pulled themselves into third and won the Europa League. But the fans wanted Jose Mourinho to return and so he did.

If Chelsea could be broken into eras under Abramovich, Mourinho’s first tenure was the first era. For better or worse, everything about Chelsea’s culture had Mourinho’s finger prints on it. The first season of his return showed great promise but in 2014/2015, the Blues were truly rampant as they won the Premier League easily.

But then the board refused to strengthen the side, believing it was good enough to go again. 2015/2016 happened for many reason, but ultimately, in December Mourinho was given his marching orders. Guus Hiddink return and steadied the ship but it was a putrid season that showed the Blues had fallen away from their dream.

Antonio Conte entered the frame next and it seemed that the Blues were on the right course again. The Blues again easily won the title and the board again responded in the summer by saying the side was good enough to go again. After selling key figures out from under Conte and replacing them with poor players, Conte saw his side fall to fifth in the league and his time came to an end.

Enchanted once more by the spell of Pep Guardiola’s “right way to play”, the Blues took a radical shift in direction not seen since Luiz Felipe Scolari or Andre Villas Boas. Maurizio Sarri was brought in to shift the culture away from Mourinho’s and into something more akin to Guardiola’s City.

It is hard to make a shift so radical without someone in between to ease the transition. Had Sarri been appointed a decade earlier, Abramovich would have long ago grown tired of him. Even still, much like Benitez, fan unrest may spell the end for Sarri (they could even end with the exact same achievements).

What comes next remains a mystery. Hazard, who signed with a tweet, is on the verge of leaving seven years later. The academy has been top of mind since before the Champions League triumph, but the returns have been meager. There is a hunger for a Chelsea way, felt under Mourinho and Conte, but one that faded under both as well.

The Champions League was the be all end all for Abramovich. Afterwards, the Blues were supposed to consolidate their power and become the crown jewel of world football. Every time the Blues seemed to be on the right track, it all fell apart and everything had to start over. That night in Munich was supposed to signal the end of one great era and the beginning of an even greater era. Instead, the era the Blues find themselves in now has been a roller coaster that is showing no signs of heading in a concrete direction.