Going into the away match at Benfica tonight, my immediate thoughts were, “it’s an away match, the best we can salvage is a score draw and hope we can finish the job at Stamford Bridge”, however, what we got, was not only a quite remarkable first away victory in the Champions League, but the fact that Roberto Di Matteo was proving to everyone that he’s not just a caretaker manager!
The players must have studied Benfica’s tactical game prior to the match and then put their preparation into practice on the training pitch.. a little similar to AVB’s job when Mourinho was in charge. But, whatever it was, everything seemed to fall into place. Benfica were rattled at times, Chelsea’s defence were in the right positions to stop Benfica from creating and attacking, and it all worked like a charm!
David Luiz and Ramires in particular just didn’t stop working! Ramires with his darting runs in central midfield, winning crucial free kicks in the middle of the park wherever necessary, while Luiz’s dazzling defensive diving headers just kept Benfica’s attack guessing. It’s this kind of ambition which shows that some of these players are still determined to keep going in Europe, and knowing that our hopes of landing a top 4 spot in the league, meaning qualification to next year’s competition hang in the balance, so it’s important that we keep going and get these important results.
And about Luiz, I’ve never witnessed a player with a strong desire of playing for Chelsea as much as him, since John Terry! Every time he plays for the club, he’s always giving 100%, and not only that, he’s probably one of the most “happy-go-lucky” players we have at the club. I almost felt insulted when I read an article from the Daily Mail the other day about Barcelona, planning a £35m bid for him in the summer! It obviously won’t happen simply because he loves playing for us! The only slight fault I have in Luiz’s play however, is that sometimes, he enjoys going forward a bit too much, and if he’s too far up the pitch while the opponent has the ball, it means we’re lacking numbers at the back, although, we do have players like Michael Essien or John Obi Mikel to cover for Luiz while he’s up the pitch.
As for our goal, well, you can’t argue that Fernando Torres is showing everyone that he’s slowly starting to look like his old self again.. despite turning 28 a couple of days ago, he’s getting there. He doesn’t have to score goals to put on a good show, and his assist to Salomon Kalou for the goal just proves that!
I think we can finish the job at Stamford Bridge. With a 1-0 lead going into that second leg against a side who didn’t seem all that confident tonight, on their home ground.. we can easily score another 3 goals against them. If we can notch 3 past Valencia, and save ourselves from disaster with 4 against Napoli, we can certainly beat Benfica at home. The only thing that worries me however, is complaicency.
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