It has taken 19 years but Roman Abramovich has finally won every trophy there is to win at Chelsea with the FIFA Club World Cup win in Abu Dhabi on Saturday.
When the Russian oligarch bought Chelsea in 2003, the club had never won the Premier League, not to talk of the UEFA Champions League. As a matter of fact, as at 2003, Chelsea had not won the League title in 48 years and had never qualified for the Champions League final. For a club that had never won the Champions League as at 19 years ago, it was impossible to even think of trophies like the UEFA Super Cup or FIFA Club World Cup. However, Abramovich joined Chelsea with a dream, and that dream was to make the club one of the most successful clubs in Europe.
Within two years of taking over at Chelsea, the first trophy of his tenure came when the club, under Mourinho in February 2005, won the 2004/2005 season League Cup. By the end of that season, Chelsea won the Premier League title in a spectacular manner as they broke all manners of records, including total number of points, clean sheets and goals conceded, en route the title win. Abramovich’s remarkable feat of delivering the title within two years is even more impressive considering the fact that it took Manchester City’s rich owners 4 years after they bought the club to win their first Premier League title. Newcastle, who are currently the club with the richest owners in the EPL, will find out soon how long it takes and how difficult it is to get to the top of the ladder.
After winning two Premier League titles in a row (and the 2005 Community Shield), Abramovich finally got his hands on the FA Cup at the end of the 2006/2007 season. With the domestic cups now complete, the next target was the UCL and Chelsea qualified for the final for the very first time the following season. However, Manchester United denied the club the first opportunity to win Europe’s top prize right in the home country of the owner as the Blues lost on penalties to their rivals in Moscow. The defeat was painful but Abramovich was not to be denied as the finally got the UCL trophy he so desired four years later right in the stadium of final opponents, Bayern Munich.
The next thing after the UCL were the Super Cup and Club World Cup but a remarkable turn of events saw Chelsea lose the final of both matches and finish third in their UCL group, despite being champions. Chelsea dropped to the Europa League but saw opportunity rather than shame and made good use of the opportunity to win its first ever Europa League trophy. That Europa League win gave the Blues another opportunity to win the Super Cup but they failed again. The third Super Cup opportunity came in 2019 after the 2018/2019 Europa League win but the Blues fell short for the third time in a row. However, Chelsea were not to be denied last year as they defeated Villarreal to finally win the trophy after four attempts, following another UCL win.
Finally, 9 years after the last attempt, Abramovich got his hands on the FIFA Club World Cup trophy to complete his trophies haul. He finally has the missing piece of the puzzle. The Russian’s model of hiring and firing may be criticized by the many but one cannot argue with the results. Besides, his love and passion for the club cannot be denied as he has always made himself available to watch his club’s games. Today, Chelsea is unarguably the most successful English club of the last two decades and one may be tempted to think that now that Abramovich has won it all, he will finally rest on his laurels.
Make no mistakes about it, Roman Abramovich is a born winner. He lives and breathes to win trophies. He will definitely back Thomas Tuchel in the transfer market to win more trophies, especially with the club going four years since winning its last EPL title. However, if Tuchel, on his part, relaxes and fails to continually deliver the trophies, Abramovich will not hesitate to add the German to the list of sacked coaches as he continues his quest for titles.
AASA PRESS UI 