Chelsea have a long and prestigious history of competing in European football. Many fans don't know that the Blues were invited to take part in the inaugural European Cup in 1955 after they won the First Division title in the 1954-55 season. Unfortunately they were denied that opportunity by the Football League and missed out on the historic opportunity.
It would not be until the 1999 season where Chelsea would make an appearance in the European Cup, now known as the Champions league. The Blues would of course go on to win the Champions League twice, the Europa League twice, the UEFA Cup Winners' Cup twice, and the UEFA Super Cup twice as well.
Along the way they have faced clubs from more than 30 countries in UEFA competition including some far flung places like Kazakhstan and Azerbaijan. Somehow in all these years however, they have never faced a club from Poland in a competitive fixture but that is set to change when they take on Legia Warsaw this evening.
Warsaw have been making appearances in the European Cup since 1956 and have made appearances in the Europa or Champions League 25 times in their history. They have a respectable record in the elite competition and have held their own against some of Europe’s elite over the years.
Despite this being Chelsea’s first competitive match against a team from Poland, it is not their first trip to face off against a Polish club. Way back in 1936 the Blues traveled to Warsaw to play the Poland national team in a friendly as part of a European tour where they played 10 exhibition matches.
They played matches in Warsaw and Krakow in front of tens of thousands and were the first English club to play in Poland. The English papers dubbed the Blues “Chelski” ahead of their trip to Eastern Europe to share the beautiful game with supporters who had never seen an English club before.
The official Chelsea site did a lovely write up of the journey the Blues took in 1936 and they detail how different it was before the advent of regular commercial travel. The club had to take several trains to make the journey across Europe which is not that dissimilar from how some supporters still travel to this day.
In that last trip to Warsaw the Blues won comfortably 2-0 but reportedly left many chances on the table due to poor finishing. That sounds all too familiar for the current iteration of the club but we would happily take that same result here in 2025.