SAMSUNG BLUEWINGS 0 CHELSEA 1 + highlights
By dixon9
July 19 2007
I’ve no idea how much of the commercial success of this “brand” (uuuugh!) promotion can be gauged by the actual attendance of these matches but if it is significant then 15,349 at LA Galaxy’s stadium surely doesn’t bode well. Having said that nearly 50,000 saw the last game against Club America.
I’ve no idea how Beckham must have felt when his LA Galaxy side earlier on the same day received a 3-0 thumping in front of a crowd of just 2,000 odd – it will be interesting to see how many come to our game against Beckham´s side on Saturday.
Still, business manager, Paul Smith remains undeterred and stated that Chelsea would be sending coaches to the United States for seminars next season hoping to obtain a “link-up” enabling Chelsea to eventually have some form of commercial presence at Disneyworld in Orlando, Florida.
"They get 10 million visitors a year, so Chelsea will be in the line of vision."
Anyway, enough of the marketing guff and onto the football….
The Drog scored his first goal of the new season on 80 mins after a Wright-Phillips cross and again, Mourinho took the opportunity to look at as much of the squad as possible this time making 10 changes for the 2nd half palying for the first time in the new "electric yellow" kit (got mine the other day and it hurt my eyes a
bit when i pulled it out the packet!).
We started with Kalou and Shevchenko up front with Joe Cole assisting, young Hutchinson at left-back with Johnson at centre-half. The game was played at a fairly brisk pace.
Shevchenko looked sharp again when Joe Cole played a nice chipped pass through for the Ukrainian although it was Essien who went close first when he thumped a volley against the bar from close range after Terry’s nod on from a corner. Bluewings went close when Neretljak mis-directed his header from a corner, Chelsea replied with a snapshot from Sidwell after Kalou´s back-heel, Bluewings when Park hit firmly straight to Cech and then a superb save from Dae Hwan Kim after Essien´s reactive flick from a Johnson low cross.
Bluewings could have taken the lead just before half-time when Johnson's error let in Lee Kwon Woo who fortunately for us shot wide.
The second half transformed Chelsea side demonstrated their intent to get the result with Drogba and a very lively Wright-Phillips and it was Drogba who fired in from a very close angle when everybody was expecting a cross. The keeper blocked and Malouda jumped onto the rebound but the keeper did well to save. Malouda tried a 25 yarder with Kim flustering and beating out the Frenchman’s effort.
Chelsea brought on Sinclair for Ferreira switching Malouda to left-back and shortly afterwards a Bluewings sub broke through and rounded Hilario only to see his effort excellently tidied up by Diarra.
Bluewings Eduardo meandered into the box on 15 mins nut shot over but apart from that, the Chelsea back four were having less and less to do and we began to dominate. Robben had a low drive cleared off the line, Wright-phillips sent Drogba through but his effort rolled off the post and then with just 10 minutes left on the clock, Drogba gave us a deserved lead. Mikel did some good midfield work and found Wright-Phillips whose cross found Drogba, signalling desperately his unmarked presence at the far post, to hit his volley downward into the opposite corner of the net.
The only yellow card of the game was Tal Haim for a late challenge. Mourinho was pleased with our performance:
“Now is the moment where I start making decisions and the players help me make decisions in relation to the way they perform.” | |||
“The positive thing for me is that we are using the ball much better. I'm quite happy with the way we played these two matches. The next one against Galaxy will be the first time I don't play two teams.” | |||
“I'm always a person that tries to be honest with my players. I try to play in my team the players that do more for that. In these matches I have to make decisions for the galaxy game where I will play a team for 60 minutes, so I have to make choices.” | |||
“Bluewings give us what we need. I was telling the coach after the match I am happy to play against Bluewings because they give us what we need, they are fast, they are strong, a good dynamic team and want to play football.” | |||
“They are not aggressive, they play fair football. It was good for us and I think for them it was also a good experience.” | |||
 | |||
Robben has been in the press a lot with regard to a move to Real Madrid although his body language during the match certainly didn´t seem of that to a player who wants to leave: | |||
“The latest is that 10 minutes ago he finished the game. I don't know more than that. In this moment he is a Chelsea player, he has two more years of contract, he's working hard and for me he is a player like the others, like John Terry or Frank Lampard.” | |||
And on Sheva:
"If he performs and shows me match after match he deserves to play, I'm very happy. I hope Sheva can do it. If Sheva plays magnificently I have to play him and Didier Drogba together, that is no problem for me."
“We have a lot of good players and I'm not the kind of coach that gives places just because of faces or names. With me, everybody has to fight for a place and I think they have a difficult task because the squad is really good."
"What we want is free competition between players and players, with their performances, to influence my decisions.
”So, I'm not stupid, I see if a player is performing at a high level."
First-half | ||||||
Chelsea(4-3-3) Cech; Ferreira, Johnson, Terry, Hutchinson; Sidwell, Essien, Lampard; J Cole, Shevchenko, Kalou. | ||||||
Second-half | ||||||
(4-3-3) Hilario; Diarra, Ben-Haim, Carvalho, Ferreira (Sinclair 69); Wright-Phillips, Makelele, Mikel; Robben, Drogba, Malouda. | ||||||
Scorer Drogba 79 | ||||||
Booked Ben-Haim MATCH HIGHLIGHTS | ||||||
| Samsung Bluewings | ||||||
Kim Dae Hwan; Cho Won Hee, Kwak Hee Ju, Mato Neretljak, Yang Sang Min; Lee Kwan Woo (c) (Lee Hyun Jin 84), Baek Ji Hoon, Kim Jin Woo (Hong Soon Mak 55); Kim Dae Eui (Skin Young Rok 72); Ahn Jung Hwan (Nam Kung Woong 72) (Park Seong Bae 84), Eduardo (Ha Tae Goon 72). | ||||||