2019 marked the end of the Eden Hazard era and the beginning of the Frank Lampard managerial era. Binding those two milestones was 2019 as the year of Chelsea FC Woman of the Year, Marina Granovskaia.
One of the first rules of leadership is to never make yourself indispensable to your organization, because if you do, two adverse consequences await: you can never be released from your current position for a promotion, and the whole thing can fall apart in your absence. No matter who you are, the mission must go on without you. This applies to everything from a Chelsea FC fan-based opinion and analysis site (no, I’m not leaving, Travis) to Chelsea FC itself.
While some teams would crumble if their owner could not enter the country, Chelsea have thrived despite Roman Abramovich and his two passports being functionally barred from the shores of England. That is because of Abramovich’s top deputy and Chelsea’s Woman of the Year, Marina Granovskaia.
Chelsea went through two transitions that normally warrant the direct, hands-on, in-person involvement of the owner: the departure of their (and the Premier League’s) best player and a managerial turnover. That latter situation was compounded by the convergence of two events, each individually unprecedented: a manager’s resignation, vice his sacking, and the transfer ban.
Don’t believe that such things require the owner’s personal attention? Check in with Arsenal and Everton, circa the last few years. The owner’s involvement is not always a good thing, but little gets done without it. Usually.
Marina Granovskaia knew, like the rest of us, early in 2018/19 that Eden Hazard would be leaving at the end of the season. She also knew, unlike the rest of us, just how likely the transfer ban was. She also, unlike the rest of us, did not count on or hope that the various precedents from Spanish clubs would apply to Chelsea.
Granovskaia prepared Chelsea to operate under a ban starting in the same summer they would lose Eden Hazard.
Her first move happened the previous summer. As part of Chelsea shedding (molting?) goalkeeper Thibaut Courtois, she negotiated a loan to bring Mateo Kovacic to Stamford Bridge. Whatever she knew at the time, she ensured – perhaps just to tease a few more concessions out of Real Madrid looking to clear their books and bench – a buy clause in Kovacic’s loan deal.
Then in January, knowing the transfer ban was all but certain, she bought and loaned Christian Pulisic from / to Borussia Dortmund.
The combination of these two moves ensure Chelsea could add two players in the summer of 2019, even with the transfer ban, which was technically a registration ban, which is important vis-a-vis Kovacic.
But these weren’t just any two players. No one player could replace Eden Hazard. But in Mateo Kovacic and Christian Pulisic the Blues have two players who connect two-thirds of the pitch with Hazard levels of dribbling prowess. Kovacic’s ability to receive, turn and accelerate through midfield is Chelsea’s best way to drive the play over midfield. Pulisic’s close control in the box, which seemingly improves with every defender who tries to tackle him, mirrors Hazard’s, as does the amount of space this creates for Pulisic to slip a pass to another forward.
Like Hazard, Kovacic leads the team in dribbles. Pulisic is second. And like Hazard, Christian Pulisic leads the team in assists.
Marina Granovskaia also saw the transfer ban as the opportunity to right one of her rare wrongs, which came in 2018. Granovskaia supposedly overruled Bruce Buck and championed Maurizio Sarri’s hiring. By the time the transfer ban came into view, the realities of her decision were just as clear.
Sarri was unfit for and uninterested in a club operating under a transfer ban – not after he struggled with the mere £130 million Chelsea spent on 2.5 players for him (you can decide if the half is Gonzalo Higuain, who arrived midseason, or Jorginho, who only does half of one midfielder’s job).
Massimiliano Allegri’s imminent departure from Juventus dovetailed with Sarri looking for an escape hatch, and Marina Granovskaia held it open and ushered Sarri through it.
When Maurizio Sarri informed his west London bosses of his desire to leave, the Blues could have just exhaled a sigh of relief and freed him from his contract with no further questions or actions needed.
But Granovskaia saw another opportunity. Several, in fact. Juventus, for whatever reason, were willing to pay for Sarri. Why deny them the chance? On a symbolic level, Juventus’ payment was her way of making restitution to her club for the decision to hire Maurizio Sarri in the first place. And by negotiating for Juventus to buy out Sarri’s contact, knowing she would probably have to do the same for whoever would replace him, she could bring in that replacement at net zero cost.
Sure enough, the money Juventus paid for Sarri pretty much sailed through Chelsea’s accounts en route to Derby County, enabling Frank Lampard to take the job at Stamford Bridge.
From being in a position of weakness by losing Eden Hazard and having Maurizio Sarri under a transfer ban, Marina Granovskaia is now presiding over one of the most spirited eras in club history.
For taking positive action to: make right her own error, maximize the transfer fee of the club’s most valuable player, expertly play the transfer market and work around the transfer ban to replace him and bring home one of the club’s greatest heroes as the manager who would usher in a barely dreamed of youth revolution, and doing it all while the club owner was diplomatically barred from the country…
Marina Granovskaia is a Chelsea Woman of the Year for 2019. Oh, and she got rid of David Luiz at the deadline. To Arsenal! Remember what we said about owner involvement?