is that the worst team to even be crowned champion of Europe???

Yes, yes they are.

yes

No, no they are not

Any luck they had throughout the run is cancelled out by the fact they had an away game for the CL Final- that, is unlucky.

did abramovich really spend a trillion dollars to build a team of smash n grab merchants?  now he has his CL trophy, he will get bored and his cash will soon be gone.

nowhere near the worst ever. could easily have two of these ffs

might aswell be called the chumpions league

you're right freddie,Liverpool trump them in been the worst winners ever,but it's a close call.

Any luck they had throughout the run is cancelled out by the fact they had an away game for the CL Final- that, is unlucky.

I think ironically it worked in their favour.  Just as in the semis, they knew they were totally outclassed and parked the bus all game.  If they had had 'easier' opponents then they might have actually tried to attack and got beaten.

lets be honest chelsea deserve a champs league be it this year or 5 years ago.

the 3rd best team in london the best in europe 

I think ironically it worked in their favour.  Just as in the semis, they knew they were totally outclassed and parked the bus all game.  If they had had 'easier' opponents then they might have actually tried to attack and got beaten.

There may be some truth in that, although it is worth remembering that the vastly superior opposition both in the semis and final managed to concede goals within minutes of Chelsea attacking, hardly the stuff of worthy trophy winners either. Maybe we underestimate the match up of Chelsea's attack against these sides, and Chelsea were their own worst enemy by parking the bus... It's always the same when a forum favourite doesn't win, the game suddenly shouldn't be about goals for and against and should be settled on chances created, number of corners, pass completion for sideway passes and so on.

liverpool have that honour or bayern munch in 1975. take your pick. any team that beats barca en route to the final can't be deemed unworthy winners.
Anyway all this bollox about moral victors and unworthy winners is just that - bollox. you either win or you don't. Worthy got nothing to do with it.

inner city i take the opposite view and if drogba hadnt scored from a set piece chelski and the manager would be getting crucified today,what i dont understand about their tactics is,
they parked the bus in 2 semi,s and the final and probably created only 5 chances in 3 games,but in all 3 games they must have conceded at least 10 good chances to their opponents,with a normal set up they,d have been unlikely to concede anymore, the loons like sky ,neville,fergie,wenger etc try to convince the public these games are settled on 1 or 2 chances in the big games,i,d have praised them if there tactics had prevented the opposition from creating chances but in the end in all 3 games it was down to poor choices,poor finishing and 2 m issed penalties that got chelsea the cup nowt to do with good defending and tactics

steaua

I can't honestly think of a worse team to have won the trophy.

Maybe Red Star Belgrade in 1991...

1st time poster hit the nail on the head

it was embarassing to watch really. chelsea were outclassed in every department

Beating the Germans with a team played off the park on penalties...can't get any better than that

not every dept, stringer

As much as I can't stand Chelsea (mainly because of Drogba, Terry and Cole) they did what they had to do to win the semi and final, and for that they deserve credit

red star were terrible in that final, but were actually a decent team. prosinecki, savicevic, mahailovic, pancev - all decent players.

How is that the opposite view 1st time poster? As previously said, given how readily Chelsea scored when they did attack, maybe parking the bus was a bad idea. Had they played a more attacking game we might be talking about them winning 3-1 last night.

Oh, and as for the worst games/performances etc, I suggest some of you revisit the final between AC Milan and Juventus a few years back. So bad a final it's ended up at a warcrimes trial in The Hague

yep red star certainly played some good stuff that season. just played for pens and the manager openly admitted it afterwards in the final.

anyway liverpool for a start were far worse than this chelsea side. some real journeyman players in that team

Had they played a more attacking game we might be talking about them winning 3-1 last night.



c'mon now

that liverpool team beat Chelsea the year they won it. And in 07

We'll never know Stringer...

yes they did but that doesn't make them a better team. it's a knock out competition. chelsea would have been massive favourites for that semi final in 2005

May 20, 2012 -- 5:45PM, Stringer wrote:

1st time poster hit the nail on the headit was embarassing to watch really. chelsea were outclassed in every department

Not in the mental department, which probably the most important in high-level sport. Bayern did sh*t themselves, while Chelsea have some fantastic warriors, and Terry, Ivanovic and Ramires were not even there. This squad deserves this trophy

definately the 2 worst teams in a final ,narrowly beating the one 2 years ago - 2 similarly awful teams

how were Bayern 'worse' than Madrid when they beat them fair and square over 2 legs?

Thinly veiled 'Correct Score 2 market was dead last night' post imo

THE THREAD STARTER IS SEEEEEEEEEETHING!!!

without a doubt, worst and luckiest CL champion ever! with the best keeper truth being said! mvp cech instead of drogba clearly

ha ha sumo  ,did OK on the game,went for the 2-1 so had a chance to green out


still was a terrible final though

Chelsea have done me proud this year and have nothing against the average Chelsea fan who's stood wit them all these years  - but the club is all that's bad about football , fat frank excepted

Cech one of the best goalies I've seen and played superb last night, Ashley Cole probably the best left back on world football, Luiz rumoured to be Barca's number 1 transfer target, Drogba can score against any team, Lampard the highest scoring midfielder the premiership has produced, Ramires, Ivanovic, Cahill and player of the year Juan Mata look set to have big Champions League careers in front of them. 
I'll not mention Terry as he polarises opinion, but I hope my argument here says that this Chelsea team is definitely NOT the worst team to win the trophy.  I agree they had a lot of things going for them but their game plan worked and we'll all be happy englishmen if the national team follow suit in a few months time.

I also didn't mention Torres who I really do rate despite not showing his best for Spain/Chelsea for too many games, I don;t suppose he's worth any where near the £50M Chelsea paid for him but I would guess he would still be sought after if his price tag was in the region of £20-£30M, so a team who can have a £20-£30M sub can't be all that bad.

I was embarassed for English football watching the Chelsea performance. Too many foreigners will now think badly of the EPL.
To celebrate 150 years of the FA the final is at Wembley again next year and I hope Chelsea dont get the gig.

If anyone wants to really analyse the method of victory, you have to look at the manager, RDM has got the team playing as a team but I doubt we're ever going to see a depth of tactics and clever football from him. I'm one Chelsea fan not jumping on the bandwagon calling for him as a MUST get the job guy, he's done amazing but that luck will run out and other managers will work out a way to beat his sides.

Worst ever European Champions are Aston Villa (1982) or Bayern Munich (1975).

With Chelsea finishing sixth in the league, should they win on Saturday, they will be one of the lowest domestically placed teams to ever win the Cup, although still some improvement on Aston Villa’s 11th place finish in 1982 (of 22 teams), and after losing their manager Ron Saunders in February of that year. Bayern Munich’s 10th place finish (of 18 teams) in 1975 is also notable.

http://www.bettingexpert.com/blog/champions-league-2012-final-betting-analysis-an-end-to-capital-punishment

just shows you how easy it was to win back then.

Malmo (Sweden) got to the final


you'd get 1000/1 for any scandinavian team to reach the final now

But you had to be champions of your league to win it back then, when was the last time Chelsea won their league?

All this proves is that a cup win can be fluked with the right amount of luck.

Hamsterdam     20 May 12 19:49 
But you had to be champions of your league to win it back then

______________

OK , i will leave you to it - obviously fishing 

The old european cup was awfu8l by the way - really horrible


played in delapidated stadia , half empty i should add - no one bothered watching it outside their own country .

it was awful - Liverpool beat tin pot teams practically the whole way through

Champions league is an improvement x50

' Luiz rumoured to be Barca's number 1 transfer target'

It was sad to see that last night, against Barca they had the lead so they were entitled to park up but for a team to camp so deep and offer nothing in the CL final is shameful.  Abramovich got his wish...but deep down did he really enjoy it winning in such a dull fashion?

The whole point of the European Cup was that it was to pit Champions against each other.

You had to have achieved something to even qualify for the competition.


Unfortunately the concentration of the best players in a few leagues has led to the current "Champions" League set up were also rans in domestic leagues become "Champions of Europe".

the modern CL is infinitely better than the old european cup, which you could win by beating 2 and sometimes just 1 decent team. you only had to beat four teams to make the final - and even then liverpool got a bye through round one one year.

fact is, 4th in england, spain or germany will give the champions of those countries a far bigger test than champions of switzerland, ireland, greece etc.

But you couldn't lose a tie back then, now the top teams get seeded to make it easy to reach the last 16, ok Manchester failed this season, so it's pretty much the same you only need to win 2 or 3 decent sides to make the final, and like already said you had to hav either won your league or won the trophy to be in it. Now arsenal are in it even though they finished 19 points behind city and utd.

It's not at all the same. Chelsea had to play Valencia, Leverkusen, Napoli, Benfica, Barca, Bayern to win the title, it's more than 2 or 3!
Champions League is 10 times better than the old European cup.

It's a better spectacle I'd agree, but not that it's harder to win

not that it's harder to win?! what planet are you on? beating these teams got liverpool to a final:

crusaders
trabzonspor
saint-etienne
zurich

where would that get you now? about third in a group, that's where.

But others must have been knocked out barca juve ect, and teams were slightly more even back then, Ajax were massive Portuguese teams Russian teams and French teams were better.

No,they cannot be termed a poor side.Football is about defending,as well as attacking.The defending by Chelsea in the semi-final and final,was as good as you can get.
Knowing that the "engine room" was severely restricted by the suspension of Ramires,who has pace and skill ,and sets up many of the attacks with Mata,the options became limited,and a different game plan was needed.
   Kalou never has been,and never will be a top player,Bertrand was in at the deep end,Cahill and Luiz were back after nearly a month out with injuries.These are facts which show why an attacking game was not possible.
   For sure everyone wants to see exciting football,end to end etc.,but it is not always possible.
Even one of Europe's top strikers couldn't find a way through a team that defended well.

That don't account for missed pens by messi and robben though

Last 4 when we won it in 1980
Forest v Ajax
Real Madrid v hamburg  and Kevin keegan

dsmith
20 May 12 21:28 Joined: 04 Apr 08 | Topic/replies: 11,427 | Blogger: dsmith's blog
But others must have been knocked out

------------

what, so there's some achievement in those teams being knocked out by other teams without you even playing them?

ffs delia, this is dismal.

viva el presidente!
20 May 12 21:23
Joined:
10 Jun 06
| Topic/replies: 12,226 | Blogger: viva el presidente!'s blog
not that it's harder to win?! what planet are you on? beating these teams got liverpool to a final:

crusaders
trabzonspor
saint-etienne
zurich

where would that get you now? about third in a group, that's where.


Yes because the last time Liverpool won it in 2005 they had to beat such European greats as:
AZ Graz
Monaco
and Olympiakos to get to the final

............ oh wait actually they lost to all those teams in 2005 but still managed to the lift the trophy because of the contrived nature of the tournament nowadays.

that year, liverpool beat bayer leverkusen, juventus, chelsea and milan. as well as pre-qualifying and qualifying from a group with deportivo and monaco in it.

if you don't think that's harder than beating crusaders, trabzonspor, saint-etienne and zurich, you need to increase your medications.

No but yes lol like I said teams were different back then, the Liverpool team of the 70's wasn't full of overseas players I guess about 75% were scousers. It was more of a level playing field, the best Spanish team had the best Spanish players same with the Russians French Italians and the rest of Europe,

The point is you can lose lose of matches and still fluke your way to the trophy these days. In the old set up it was much harder to do this and the better teams were more likely to win the trophy. That is clear for anyone who has followed football to see.

Your point in picking out Liverpool's run to a final is somewhat bizarre.
St. Etienne were the French Champions of the time - having won the French league on the last three occasions and their team was full of French Internationals.
You seem to be suggesting that this was an easy game for Liverpool in 1977 because St. Etienne is not a "big" name now in 2012 and it would have been a much harder game if for Liverpool in 1977 if they had to play Marseilles or PSG who languished near the bottom of the league.

Plus and a big big plus is that you had to win your league, Chelsea couldn't have won it in the old format until they are good enough to win the pl

yeah, and the other teams were sh!t.

beating one genuinely decent team on the way to the final was par for the course in those days.

and you're talking as if being able to get through knockout rounds despite losing a game is a new thing. whereas it's always been like that. that's how two-legged ties work.

example: man utd in 1967-1968.

teams faced on way to final: hibs, sarajevo, gornik zabrze, real madrid.
total away wins: 0

On what a basis were the other teams sh!t?

You just picked four teams at random that you knew nothing about in the 1970's and so just assumed they were terrible. You started off saying Saint Etienne were sh!t too and now seemed to have changed your mind.

Zurich were the Swiss Champions? If Liverpool had to play Basle instead would that have been harder because as Swiss Champions Basle gubbed Man U in 2012?


The point you are completely overlooking is the competition is now set up with a league set up to begin with allow teams to recover from such slip ups ergo it is to progress than before.

And as pointed out it was a challenge to even qualify for the tournament in the past, nowadays a team like Arsenal who were having a terrible season according to a lot of pundits qualify and therefore have a chance to become European Champions next season. In the past they would have had 0% chance of that.

In the past you needed two quality seasons in succession to have a chance of becoming European Champions.

Chelsea have had two distinctly average seasons in a row and have achieved that accolade. How can you possibly say it is harder now?

It's harder because the field of the C1 is tougher now, it's simple. The 4th in Premier League or la Liga is and has always been a far better team than the champion of Austria or Romania, even before the Bosman ruling.
At the start of the competition, much more teams have the level to win it now than before. You want a prove? Here it is: Never a team won a C1 two years in a row for the 22 last years. While before that, Real madrid won it 5 times in a row, Ajax 3 times, Bayern 3 times, Liverpool 2 times, Milan 2 times etc.

No.   Liverpool in 2005 were.   Chelsea are certainly the luckiest team in world football though.

European teams weren't up to much years ago tbf  - i've no idea why  .

From my own memory banks i recall Ipswich beat St Ettiene 1-4 on their own ground in a European game.

Liverpool,Nottingham and Villa won the European cup something like 7 times out of 9 .Foreign teams only stating winning it after we were  kicked out


The standards are way higher today in Europe despite all the money in the EPL  .

forest were at least as negative as chelsea

man city and united out early,why, cos the format is much more difficult,
in chelseas last 4 games they were written off each time, before each match.
getting rid of barca on the way, average season, maybe the manager had a lot to do with that,
the interim manager won fa cup and champions league.
maybe if he was in charge at the start they may have won the lot.
and he might even be out of a job now.
they got into the champions league and won it,
what more could they do.
i must admit i would love it to return to the old method of league winners only,
but its all about money now,
a team finishing 6th 20 points behind the league winners can get promoted via the play offs, whats the point of it all now if a team that qualifies having had an average season wins it.

There are some ridiculously misguided comments on here!

To get to the final, Chelsea erased a 3-1 deficit against Napoli. No easy task. They then beat Barcelona over two legs, in which they scored three goals and did not lose. It's all very well saying they played boring football and got lucky, but how many teams could have defended like they did at Camp Nou and come away with the result needed? That was an utter masterclass in containment and defence, and they scored one very good goal.

They then marched on to Munich, where they played in front of Bayern's own fans for 120 minutes, came back to score with minutes remaining having gone behind, and then beat the opposition in a penalty shoot-out. It's somewhat ridiculous that so many people think Bayern were vastly superior, too. Chelsea set up the way they did to stifle some very good players, and it worked. There was no stage in that game until the Bayern goal where it looked as though Chelsea were in too deep. They always looked threatening on the counter attack and were very much in the game.

Just out of interest, this is the fifth time I have seen Gomes play for club or country and every time he has looked like an Andy Cole. His stats cannot be argued with, but boy does he need a few chances to hit the back of the net. He's hardly a shoo-in in front of goal.

To suggest that they are a bad winner of the Champions League and/or undeserving is criminally inept in my opinion. For what it's worth I am a Blackburn fan and have no particular allegiance to Chelsea.

Every team that wins the champ league deserves to be crowned the best team ,this was a team that has been a spot kick away from winning before and reached countless semis with the same players more or less , chealsea have been very very close and along with Madrid , barca , bayern , man u , are in the top 5 for consistency year after year .

The fact that no team has defended it shows what a tough trophy it is to win , and the one thing chealsea were was tough , mentally especially to come from 3 1 down in Napoli when in crisis as a club then overcome benfica and barca the way they did , and still have the mentality and belief to keep going against bayern ,AWAY from home almost defies belief ,

They even missed thier first penalty , i would say chealsea are one off the greatest winners , inspirational team and now legends 

In this day and age of money driven players and greed and spoilt natures it was very very refreshing to see a TEAM who so appreciated winning that trophy both for them AND thier fans , im no fan and im a j terry despiser being honest , but i was even glad for him , thats what was so special about that chealsea team they brought football home again for the fan , well done chealsea

Chelsea won the Champions League, that's the fact. But Chelsea is far from being the best football team in Englad, not to say in Europe. But still they won and deserve respect for that, it sometimes happens, Greece won an Euro Cup in a similar way.

My respect to RDM because he made the most with what he had and my respect to Petr Cech, best keeper in the world. But imho Chelsea got lucky this CL many times, they were lucky with Napoli, with Barca and with Bayern, last two teams playing way better team football and wasting penalties and tons of chances.

They won the tittle and deserve some credit for that but that doesn't mean they are the best team in Europe because they are not. This is football and logic fails sometimes and this is an example, simple as that.

You could also say chealsea were the most clinical team , making the most from minimal chances so isnt that better than opposition who squander a host off chances

The league was lost when AVB lost the dressing room , had matteo been there longer they would have been higher in the league but behind the scenes politics dictated a poor first half of the season .

Politics also dictated Barca's poor end of the season and they didn't won any big tittle yet despite being the best team in the world. Football is unpredictable sometimes and this time it was.

You just picked four teams at random that you knew nothing about in the 1970's and so just assumed they were terrible. You started off saying Saint Etienne were sh!t too and now seemed to have changed your mind.

----------

excuse me, where did I say st etienne were sh!t? I said back then you played four teams to win the tournament, and one of them would be decent.

if you're telling me that glentoran in the seventies or tranzonspor, or zurich for that matter were any good, well fine.  funny that the countries they came from achieved fck all in that decade and were generally regarded as footballing backwaters.

and I bet you can't name a single player who was in any of their teams. how many went on to great careers?

the hardest thing about the european cup back then was the travel. as a competition it was massively inferior to the CL, precisely because it was filled with the champions of malta, iceland etc and unless you were really unlucky you would get at least a couple of walkover rounds on the way to winning it.

And as pointed out it was a challenge to even qualify for the tournament in the past

---------

that makes the competition harder to qualify for. it doesn't make it harder to win.

Oh well - things could be worse .


They could still have Ken Bates as chairman

Chelsea need commending for their `never say die` spirit..but the main factor of their triumph was LUCK ... and ridiculous amoumts of it in several different games...it was still great to see an English club win it though...M Platini`s face was a picture !!

I wonder if people who say chelsea played antifootball ever played football them selves, even as amateurs, or played a match against a strong attacking team. Defence/counter attack style takes a lot of skill, and the right kind of players. Plus it creates a lot of drama if a team can defend well, which is what football is all about.

I'm not sure there is such a thing as that much luck. I think we have to give Chelsea some credit here. They beat Barcelona at home then went to Barcelona and got a draw, scoring two goals in the process, then went to Munich and defeated Bayern at home. Sorry but that cant all be down to luck.

I watched the Final and I cant remember Bayern creating that many clear cut chances. They had a lot of the ball but a lot of their attacks broke down around the Chelsea box. When they did penetrate it was good defending that stopped them scoring. Once or twice they were in good positions to score but fluffed their lines, but they fluffed them, meaning that they weren't good enough to take their chances. That's not luck that's poor finishing.

Gomez needs at least 10 chances before he'll score - he's no Klose that's for sure. If Klose had been playing he would have scored a couple in my opinion. If Bayern had Drogba up front they would have won.

Bayern lacked quality up front and that has nothing to do with luck.

Before a ball was kicked this season,Chelsea were generally 4th-5th favs with Manchester City to win the competition. You could get no better than 11/1 with PP (8/1 being the shortest with BF) so the simple answer to the OP's question would be "no"

They beat the best club side in Europe some say ever en route to becoming Champions.
Who do the green eyed mob want then??
To win it you can only beat the best teams in Europe that year FFS.

Is that a better method then?
Instead of playing Benfica, Bayern, Valencia and the winners of Real v Barcelona we see who the bookmakers make favourite at the start of the season.
LOL

Is that dirested at me Mister E ?

Im simply saying that a lot worse sides and bigger priced than 11/1 shots have won it.

directed even

Right, agree with you scaredmoney.
Dirested was fine

Good luck

How about some credit for David Luiz and Gary Cahill,both out for nearly a month,and come back without a runout in a league game,and put in great shifts.

Saying it was easier to win in the old days is nonsense......the standard of football/fitness levels maybe higher today but that doesn't mean it was easier to win.  Just because some of the teams are no longer big names doesn't mean they were poor, the big names were still around back then.
Only one team can win in any year and they are usually the best at the time, which is all you can be.  The knockout format did allow some lesser teams into the final stages but I would prefer it to the bloated format we have today.

CHELSEA FC, CHAMPIONS OF EUROPE 2012