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Club World Cup Loss
Reaction and thoughts
Most people thought that the Club World Cup would not mean a whole lot, except the security of bragging rights that we are truly the Champions of the World. Again most people wouldn't have thought that it would end with some of our top players in tears. It clearly meant more to the team than the media had conveyed. Not only were the players upset but the fans were after a frustratingly dire second half.
One matter that constantly frustrates me as a Chelsea fan is the constant commentary, criticisms and general discussion about Torres. The problem for our number 9 is that he has become impossible to ignore, and this game was one of his worst performances in the Chelsea shirt. As usual he often drifted into the middle of play to try and obtain the ball to dribble and pass and link up with other players, and I can't recall a single moment in the second half where he did this without losing the ball. His strengths don't lie in his dribbling skills nor his passing but in his pace- which has dramatically declined since his injury, and finishing- again, dramatically declined. The pinnacle of his woeful game came at the 86th minute, in which with good fortune the ball bounced into his feet, and yet from six yards he still hit the keeper. No wonder he had tears in his eyes at the end of the game. It confirms what Chelsea really need to do in January- Abramovich needs to swallow his pride and admit Torres is a flop, and then of course invest in a few new strikers.
Something that I really questioned today was the exclusion of Oscar. Benitez's justified this decision by claiming that Moses would provide the width and pace that Corinthians have struggled against. Well, Moses wasn't very effective today. But the greatest reason for Oscar to start is that this is a cup that the Brazilians covet greatly. The passion of our Brazilians could be seen at the end of the game with Luiz, Oscar and Piazon in tears. So we had a great player with a huge passion and desire to win on our bench, instead of players out there who really didn't look like they cared. And then I saw this;
Don’t know if this has got through to the English media, but Oscar told a Brazilian reporter that Rafa ‘must be crazy’ for not starting him.
Moving on, our central midfield were dominated in the second half. In the first half Lampard put through some amazing balls up front, and had Torres maybe taken a better first touch we could have had more openings. After the break, however, we looked overrun. We missed Mikel, and Romeu had also looked solid as a deep set midfielder position until his injury. When I saw Azpilicueta was coming on I had hoped that Rafa was taking the move that the commentator had interpreted it as. Take off Lampard or Ramires and push Luiz into the central midfield where he had done so well in the Semi-final. Luiz was a player out there who was really working hard. Pushing him into central midfield would have granted him a greater effect on the game in the last half hour when we were chasing a goal. His energy, passing ability, skill, power and passion would surely have made a huge difference. Instead Rafa just did a straight swap for swap of rightbacks. Ahem.
However, this just avoids the main reason for our defeat. It was simply that the players (most of them) just didn't really care. Chelsea didn't turn up today, but Corinthians played as if it was a World Cup final to them. They were well drilled and organised. It made them hard to breakdown and when Chelsea did they didn't take their chances. And yet players were still teary at the end.
Well onwards and upwards, hopefully.
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