Chelsea, Benfica chase history in Europa League final

Teams look to salvage season after unsatisfactory domestic campaigns.

AMSTERDAM: After a turbulent season, history beckons for Chelsea in today’s Europa League final in Amsterdam, where they will meet a Benfica team reeling from a devastating domestic defeat by archrivals Porto.

The premature end to Chelsea’s Champions League defence had threatened to leave a cloud over their entire campaign.

Roberto Di Matteo’s dismissal as manager created a negative atmosphere that only got worse when the unpopular Rafael Benitez was appointed as his interim successor, but now, salvation is in sight.

Saturday’s 2-1 win at Aston Villa essentially secured the club’s place in next season’s Champions League, and victory over Benfica would turn an unhappy campaign into one etched in Chelsea folklore.

The all-German Champions League final between Bayern Munich and Borussia Dortmund on May 25 means Chelsea’s fans will not be able to crow that they are the champions of Europe for much longer.

But if they overcome Benfica, they will become the first club to hold both European titles at the same time.

They are also bidding to become only the fourth team to have won the Champions League, the Europa League and the now-defunct Cup Winners’ Cup – which they won in 1971 and 1998 – after Bayern, Juventus and Ajax.

Chelsea beat Benfica in the quarter-finals en route to last season’s Champions League triumph, but Spanish midfielder Juan Mata remains wary of Jorge Jesus’s side.

“We’re playing against Benfica, a historic team in Europe that will be very tough to beat, as we saw last season in the Champions League,” he said.

Amsterdam was the scene of Benfica’s second European Cup triumph, in 1962, but it remains the last venue where they have tasted success in a European final.

There have been six painful defeats since then, although the most recent was 23 years ago, when they lost 1-0 to AC Milan in the final of the 1990 European Cup.

Nonetheless, with 51 years having now passed since Benfica’s last continental title, there is no shortage of motivation.

Pellegrini favourite to replace Mancini at City

Manuel Pellegrini remained the odds-on favourite to become the new manager of Manchester City after Roberto Mancini was sacked a year to the day since he brought the Premier League trophy to Eastlands.

Malaga boss Pellegrini has been a reported long-term target for City, having previously won plaudits for his work at two other Spanish clubs in Real Madrid and Villarreal.

There was speculation, too, that if Pellegrini did not arrive at Eastlands, City might bring interim Chelsea boss Rafael Benitez on board.

The club’s Abu Dhabi-based owners confirmed Monday the end of Mancini’s three-and-a-half-year tenure,
with a City statement also talking of a need to ‘develop a holistic approach to
all aspects of football at the club’.

Published in The Express Tribune, May 15^th, 2013.