Sometimes in life you have to be at the right place at the right time. You can hardly go as right well as Roberto Di Matteo did on both the place and the time to end the 2012 season.
In the summer of 2011, Andre Villas-Boas was the prodigy of football coaches. Still in his early 30s, after a superbly successful spell at Porto he was ready to move to the big scene as manager of Chelsea. While all eyes were on Villas-Boas, former Chelsea midfielder Di Matteo made a much more non-descriptive job transfer attempt. He applied for manager of Birmingham City, who were just relegated from the Premier League. Di Matteo didn’t get the job, instead was appointed as assistant at Chelsea.
Di Matteo replaced AVB at ChelseaThings didn’t work out for Villas-Boas. He never quite got it working out with the players and the team was constantly under performing. In early March the situation was dire – the Blues were muddling through in the Premier League and had just lost the first leg of the Champions League Last 16 match up with Napoli 3-1. That’s when Roman Abramovich decided he has had just about enough with the “prodigy” coach and sacked him, appointing Di Matteo as interim manager.
Following that, Chelsea went on a legendary run in the Champions League. They won the return leg at home against Napoli 4-1 in extra time. An elimination of Benfica in the quarterfinals set up a dramatic semi-final with Barcelona. Chelsea overcame all odds to win 3-2 on aggregate; with the second leg 2-2 draw an easy contender for match of the season. In the final against Bayern Munich on their home stadium, the Blues were again the underdogs. However they again found a way to win, this time on penalties, and became champions of Europe for the first time in their history.
So what was Di Matteo’s role in all this? Is he a great coach who got the chance to shine, or was he just lucky?
The answer is: both. Di Matteo was able to motivate and energize the team much better than Andre Villas-Boas could. He brought back the confidence that every team needs to succeed. Tactically, Chelsea was also very sound, well organized in defence and efficient in attack. There is now doubt, however, that lady luck played her role too. The Blues were outplayed in large stretches and were fortunate that Barca missed as much as they did, including a penalty squandered by Messi. In the final too, the lottery of the penalties worked out in their favour this time.
Di Matteo’s story is not unique. In the late fall of 1999, John Toshack was sacked as manager of Real Madrid and his unknown assistant Vicente Del Bosque took over as interim coach. Del Bosque was supposed to be just a placeholder for the next big name at Santiago Bernabeu, but he won the Champions League that season and went on to guide Real Madrid to their most successful spell in their modern history, winning the Champions League again in 2002 and La Liga in 2001 and 2003. Now as manager of the Spanish national team, Del Bosque has engraved his name in football history as one of the greats.
So is Di Matteo the next Del Bosque? Or is he going to descend into relative obscurity like Avraam Grant, who was one penalty and a John Terry slip away from winning the Champions League for Chelsea before Di Matteo? Only time will answer those questions. One thing is for sure: when Di Matteo looks back on the Birmingham City job application, he can be glad it didn’t work out.
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