International whinge
Yes, this is a whinge about Chelsea, the team soon to be crowned Barclays Premier League champions – the team that basically wrestled back the title from Leicester City at the midway point of the season. It’s a whinge about the constant attachment to coac
Chelsea fans should not get too comfortable with Antonio Conte in charge …
It seems almost diabolical to whinge at such uproariously happy times at Stamford Bridge but, alas, before the gravy train comes to a grinding halt, it’s important to warn fellow Blues about the perils of getting attached to Antonio Conte. He’s a charming, loveable man, a kind of fantasy league dad. His Italian-English is like the sound of cashew nuts slowly going inside a grinder. Lord help women, were he ever to grow a full beard. His boyish dark hair, drooping from all angles, gives him the appearance of a Beatles bass guitarist in the making. But most of all, he’s a winner. A shameless, preening, unapologetic winner. And everybody loves a winner. We’ve had charming coaches before: Jose Mourinho, Ruud Gullit and Andre Vilas Boas. And we’ve certainly had Italians before: Carlo Ancelotti, Claudio Ranieri, Roberto Di Matteo and Gianluca Vialli. But there is something different about Conte. He makes you want him to stay for a long, long time, through heady highs and miserable lows. It’s because you know that as soon as that winning goal goes in, so will he. At 180km/h, he’ll hare down the touchline to celebrate and give an unsolicited group hug to the fans sitting in the front row seats where the greyhound track used to circle. Each of us has, from our living rooms all the way down in South Africa, imagined being embraced by this touchy-feely man. There’s nothing awkward about it at all. But snap out of it! It’s not going to last. I hate to be the dark clouds to your silver lining but, as soon as Roman Abramovich (or these days Eden Hazard) and the coach hit a rocky patch, Conte will pack his bags and we’ll be left with our hearts spluttered all over the living room floor. It’s happened countless times before. No one wanted Ranieri to leave in 2004, after guiding us to our first Champions League place. But as soon as Mourinho took over, we moved on quickly to the next flame. We are no different to Abramovich, us Chelsea fans. We love something or someone new. Continuity, though we wish for it, is a bore. When Mourinho left for the first time, the wounds took longer to heal. Luiz Felipe Scolari and Avram Grant didn’t quite have the charm to win us over, but Guus Hiddink (part one and two) did. We are gullible, to say the least. We put out on the first date and then we fall in love, then we stalk their Instagram profiles when heartbreak comes, but we move on quicker than Amy Winehouse when our tears dry on their own. Ancelotti could have easily been the greatest Chelsea coach of any era, especially after his double-winning season of 2009/10. He had the style and the pizzazz, a football brain par excellence. And then Fernando Torres happened to him. “AVB”, the Mourinho protégé, tried to change too much too soon, but Di Matteo got it right and brought the sweet nectar of the Champions League to the Bridge for the first time. Oh how sweet that night was. I’ll never forget it: I was covering Orlando Pirates’ second double-treble win, which was clinched by a 4-2 win over Lamontville Golden Arrows at Moses Mabhida Stadium, where Benni McCarthy scored a double. The night ended with me alone with a beer and a Chelsea shirt, watching the final against Bayern Munich in the darkness of the Durban office of the Sunday Times, shunning my friends for fear of the guffaws that would follow if we lost. We won. And May 19, 2012 was etched in my memory like the Ten Commandments to stone. But, after founding the “Holy Trinity” (Hazard, Juan Mata and Oscar) in the first few months of the following season, “RDM” was fired, at 4am in his office after a loss to none other than Conte’s Juventus. Fate was playing a hand for sure, but we didn’t know it then. All the while, Chelsea hearts were dragged through the seventh circle of hell. Look, we shouldn’t be complaining, not when we played the most sumptuous and consistent football this season by far. Conte not only brought a refreshing new 3-4-3 style, but he managed to find something suited to the players he has, whereas most coaches try to impose their ideals onto helpless players that are ill-equipped to execute those plans. He has been smart without being lavish in the transfer market. N’golo Kante, David Luiz and Marcos Alonso was all he really needed to create a championship-winning team. It sucks that Michy Batshuayi has not had enough starts, but that’s on the manager, too, because he brought back Diego Costa’s libido for scoring goals. A January window went by without a wild Chelsea acquisition; it was like a breath of fresh air. Victor Moses, the Nigerian starlet who battled to hold down a place under previous managers, looks like a new signing at wingback. One only wishes Conte was there when the other diminutive midfielder was struggling in the darker shade of blue, Shaun Wright-Phillips (and Romelu Lukaku and Kevin de Bruyne). I still haven’t let go of how good they were and should have been for us. But as they say, it’s better to have loved and lost than to have never loved at all. Here’s to more years of Antonio “Wild Thang” Conte.
“EACH OF US HAS, ALL THE WAY DOWN IN SOUTH AFRICA, IMAGINED BEING EMBRACED BY THIS TOUCHY-FEELY MAN. THERE’S NOTHING AWKWARD ABOUT IT AT ALL.”