Chelsea: Europa League title showed the strength of the club’s winning DNA

Chelsea won Maurizio Sarri his first trophy, while denying Unai Emery his fourth Europa League title. Or, if you prefer, Arsenal could not bring Unai Emery his record-setting fourth win in the tournament, instead offering the opportunity for Maurizio Sarri to claim his first.

For all the talk about managers this season, the Europa League final had little to do with the managers’ organization, tactics or motivation. What separated the two sides in Baku was the culture, character and experience of the clubs as a whole and the individual players. Measuring along those qualities, Chelsea’s 4-1 win may understate their case.

Chelsea’s first two goals were from Olivier Giroud and Pedro, two of the team’s three World Cup winners. Arsenal has none.

Pedro was already the most-decorated player in the Premier League. The Europa League title completes his set of every trophy for club and country, and makes him the first person to win the Champions League, Europa League, Premier League, European Championship and World Cup. Pedro amassed all of those while Arsenal added nothing but FA Cups and Community Shields to their trophy case.

Chelsea’s captain in Baku, Cesar Azpilicueta, played in the Blues’ previous European final, winning the Europa League in 2013. The club captain, Gary Cahill, played in that game, as well, in addition to the previous year’s Champions League final, along with David Luiz.

The experience these players have in competing for and winning major trophies – particularly in finals games – is a significant advantage. They bring the composure and confidence necessary to settle the nerves of those players who are in this situation for the first time. They know the rhythm of these games, and understand how to work at the edges of their coach’s organizational plan to simply get the job done. Perhaps most importantly, having tasted victory once, they want it again. The mark of a player at Chelsea’s level of success and competitiveness – players like Pedro, Giroud, Cahill, Frank Lampard, John Terry and the rest – is they want the next trophy even more than they wanted the first.

Win a trophy, check the box and call it a career? Not if you want that career at Stamford Bridge.

We talk about things like The Chelsea Way (usually banter) or Chelsea’s DNA, and it’s easy to dismiss those phrases as fan pablum. But on nights like Wednesday, and a few other famous ones in club history, someone watching the two teams for the first time can identify the serial winner and the perennial also-ran, even if those teams were separated by only two points in the Premier League just a few weeks ago.

A lot of things can change about an organism over time, but not its DNA. This goes for organizations as well as organisms. You might lose your hair, gain weight, not be as strong or as spry, and develop who knows what medical condition, but you still have the DNA you had in your younger years.

Football clubs are the same way. The players will turnover, each bringing in his unique skill set, maybe developing a few new things along the way and then leaving a gap for the next guy to fill in his own way. Managers will cycle through the club even more quickly, with some aiming to maintain current trends and others trying to impose their will. But all this happens within a context that spans for more than any one individual’s tenure.

But DNA is not truly, absolutely constant. It is under normal circumstances. A powerful external force can change it, usually not for the better. In real life, radiation has never produced the spider that bit Peter Parker, but it did produce Chernobyl.

Chelsea have a manager who greatly changed how the team plays. Because of the talent of the players and the culture of the club, he was only partially successful. Players like Eden Hazard, Pedro and Olivier Giroud know when it’s time to put Sarriball in abeyance and put the ball in the back of the net. That’s the culture of the club overcoming the short-term disruptions of coaches.

The Europa League final was a triumph of who both teams are writ large. Unai Emery was not enough to turn Arsenal into a Europa League champion by virtue of his three previous wins, and Maurizio Sarri was not sufficient to hinder Chelsea winning trophies as they always do.

While DNA is strong and resilient, it is not inviolable. Subject it to enough externalities – players, coaches, management, owners – and it will change.

Arsenal are banking on it over the next few years. They will seek to change as much as they can and impose as much stress as possible on those who remain to rewire their DNA.

The Blues should consider how much they want to change and are willing to change about theirs. If Chelsea feel the need to choose between who they are and who they think they want to be, they should consider the costs. The team winning their manager’s first trophy is who they are. Their neighbors in red and white are who they should not want to be.

Hopefully, Chelsea altered Sarri’s DNA so he can continue winning trophies the Chelsea Way if he stays at Stamford Bridge. We’d like to think this entire season, right up to the final match, was a learning experience for him. The biggest lesson he could learn from the serial winners around him and the serial winner that is his club is how to be one in his own right.