Whenever Sir Alex Ferguson has been asked whether, considering the twenty-seven years he spent at the helm of Manchester United, he conceives of any regret, his answer has been the same: his team, or rather his teams, had not been able to translate in Europe the domination they exerted on English football as he was convinced that it should have been the case. And every time he was asked why, he always came back to the same explanation.
Europe, he says, is something you learn. Even putting aside the luck factor inherent in all knockout competitions, success in tournaments also rests on the intangible that is the European “experience”. We win because we have already won. This experience, a Real Madrid, a Liverpool, a Milan had it, while his Manchester United, who had a title of European champion less on his record than Nottingham Forest (and already thirteen years old) when he did. took the lead, had to build it from almost nothing.
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L’exmple de Manchester United
Even the Barcelona miracle of 1999 did not completely change the situation. Just as Giggs and Cantona’s United seemed doomed to hit a glass ceiling whenever imagined to climb higher (remember the semi-final against Borussia Dortmund in 1996-97, for example), his subsequent incarnations also came up against this invisible obstacle more often than in their turn, and it was not until 2007-08 for a second coronation to follow the first. A “lived experience” can also be that of failure.
“As a United fan, I wasn’t too worried about City but there…”
Just as victory breeds victory, so defeat, especially if it does not respect the apparent logic of the game and the forces involved, also has an unfortunate tendency to breed. Ferguson was convinced of it. Two Champions Leagues, for him, did not reflect the real status of his club in the European hierarchy during the two decades which followed the title of champion of England finally gained in 1992-93.
But Guardiola’s Manchester City, three times champion in four seasons, is today in a situation that is strongly reminiscent of the first United of Ferguson. He dominates the Premier League (and seems destined to dominate it) as MU did then. And like the MU of 1993-98, the City of 2016-20 have, each time, fallen to supposedly weaker than him in Europe. For MU, the executioners were named Galatasaray, IFK Göteborg, Rotor Volgograd (in the UEFA Cup), Dortmund (excellent team, but also great outsider before their semi-final of C1) and AS Monaco, which subjected the same fate to the Citizens, also victims of Tottenham, Liverpool (in a season when the Reds only finished in the Top 4 at the last minute, twenty-five points behind the champion) and Lyon since the arrival of Guardiola in England.
“It’s a fucking disgrace”
City’s “experience” in the Champions League, at least until this season, does not really engender confidence before the final on Saturday, especially since if it was necessary to find a source body from which to sample fragments of the European DNA that the Citizens are wrong, one could choose worse than that of Chelsea. Is it because José Mourinho had arrived there in the immediate wake of his successes in C1 and C3 with Porto? In any case, we never had the impression that this Chelsea was doomed to relive eternally these semi-finals lost in a breath (three in four years, however). It was because he had never given the feeling that it was the fear, the stage fright, the vertigo of the stranger that had made him lose his footing, even when John Terry and Nicolas Anelka failed in the shootout. to the Moscow goal. Manchester City is quite another thing.
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Chelsea knew how to feed on her rage. The screaming Drogba “it’s a fucking disgrace“after seeing two penalties being denied to his team in an incredible semi-final against Barcelona from Guardiola on May 6, 2009, is also the Drogba who scores in the 88th minute of the final won against Bayern three years later, just like he is the Drogba who, by transforming the Blues’ last shot on goal at the Allianz Arena, completes their revenge on fate, or, rather, reappropriates that fate, gives it the hoped-for meaning. in the account of what happened “before”, each match, happy or not, is transformed into a stage in the process of the coronation. The part of suffering acquires a different meaning. In “DNA”, this ‘D’ is the initial of fate.
This word, “destiny”, is moreover the one that all the participants in this final to which I was able to speak – Cech, Mata, Drogba – use to evoke the incredible course. “It was written“. The whole group of Di Matteo had, very early, the conviction that it would be” their “year and, for Chelsea, this conviction has become an article of faith, which has been transmitted from group to group since. this team which seems to constantly change coaches maintains continuity otherwise, through the presence of players who have seen up to ten coaches directing their training. At Stamford Bridge, the celebrant counts less than the mass.
Heritage
Those who still say today that “Chelsea have no history” ceased to have a working memory more than twenty years ago. The Cup victory of Luca Villai in 1998 was already the echo of that of Peter Osgood in 1971. The sacred team in 2012 was the direct descendant of that of the first Mourinhien title in 2005. The one that won the Europa League with Rafa Benitez – another true “European”, that one – the following season had initiated the first real turn, that of the “bye-bye” to the nucleus formed by Mourinho in the wake of Ranieri. But Paulo Ferreira was still there, as were Cech and Lampard. And among the “new ones” of 2013, like Eden Hazard or César Azpilicueta, some were still present six years later when Chelsea won the competition again, as, of the 2019 winners, no less than nine could play a role tonight. (Kepa, Christensen, Azpilicueta, Alonso, Emerson, Kanté, Jorginho, Kovacic and Giroud).
N’Golo Kante
Credit: Getty Images
If Chelsea were to lose this Saturday night, it wouldn’t be a big deal. In view of the most recent performances of the two teams and the odds that the bookmakers have prepared accordingly (Chelsea are 4 to 1!), It would even be logical. But if Chelsea were to win, it wouldn’t be all that surprising either. This would confirm that this club has a very special affinity with the competition that Pep Guardiola has refused since he left Camp Nou and Messi, and that, of all the sciences that can be applied to football, genetics is the one we will ignore at his peril. It’s also about DNA, you see.
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