Lampard the perfect man to guide Chelsea youngsters in Europe
Coach’s experience of Champions League will be invaluable against Valencia, says Matt Law
Frank Lampard has never managed in the Champions League, yet Chelsea’s head coach is perfectly placed to tell his European rookies what they can expect when a Valencia team embroiled in a bitter civil war arrive at Stamford Bridge.
For all of Lampard’s managerial inexperience in Europe, he has lived, breathed and, most importantly, won the Champions League as a Chelsea player.
Whether it be the starters or those on the substitutes’ bench tonight, Lampard’s fledglings are in safe hands. Who better to tell Tammy Abraham, fresh off his first Chelsea hat-trick, how the Valencia defenders will try to unsettle him? Who better to talk to Mason Mount about the even greater need to keep possession? And who better to warn Fikayo Tomori about the types of challenges that catch the attention of European referees?
And if another of Chelsea’s Champions League beginners, goalkeeper Kepa Arrizabalaga, needs any advice then Lampard can always call on technical and performance adviser Petr Cech.
Asked what it will mean to take charge of Chelsea in the Champions League, Lampard said: “I will be proud. I had multiple incredible nights in the Champions League, and some bad ones, but it is the ultimate in club football for me.”
Abraham and Co will no doubt be feeling the same nervous excitement that Lampard experienced 16 years ago, when he made his debut in the competition as a second-half substitute against Sparta Prague.
On the challenge of preparing
his rookies, Lampard said: “The main thing that I noticed as a player was that your concentration levels and focus throughout every game have to be absolutely spot on.
“That’s not to say you can get away with things in the Premier League, but the higher level of player in the Champions League and different style of game can sometimes surprise you. Valencia are fantastic on the counter-attack and they can hurt you in one second when you feel like you are controlling the game, so that focus throughout will be the main point.”
Valencia have arrived in England in the midst of a crisis, following the decision to sack Marcelino Garcia Toral and replace him with former Spain Under-21 manager Albert Celades, and the 5-2 defeat by Barcelona at the weekend.
The players refused to carry out their pre-match media duties in a show of solidarity towards Marcelino, yet Lampard knows better than most how disgruntled squads, on occasion, can come together to spring a surprise.
It was during the 2012 campaign, just a couple of weeks after a Champions League defeat at Napoli, for which Lampard was relegated to the bench, that Chelsea sacked Andre Villas-boas and replaced him with Roberto Di Matteo. Chelsea had been in turmoil but the players rallied together, thrashed Napoli 10 days later at Stamford Bridge, with Lampard scoring a penalty, and went on to win the competition.
“I am aware of what’s going on [at Valencia], but at the same time it doesn’t affect our approach or my approach,” Lampard said. “My experience of moments like this, when there is an issue of a team against the media, the outside world, generally it makes a group tighter as players. Sometimes it can be a positive as much as a negative.
“I am not going to think too much about it. We will certainly be ready for a team – even if they have their issues off the pitch – that will be determined to do well.”
Four years before the Champions League success, there had been a similar sense of the players pulling together, when Chelsea responded to the sacking of Jose Mourinho by reaching the final under Avram Grant.
Nobody particularly rated Grant’s coaching or manmanagement. Yet Chelsea reached their first Champions League final, thanks in part to a moment that Lampard believes cemented his special bond with the club’s fans.
Soon after the death of his mother, Pat, and before her funeral, Lampard scored the 98th-minute penalty that helped Chelsea beat Liverpool to reach the final that they eventually lost to Manchester United.
“I didn’t need an extra bond with the fans and the club, but what happened that night with the fans in the stadium, in such a huge game, it is something that kicked everything on about how I feel about this club,” Lampard said. “So that is maybe the magic of the Champions League.”