Venue: Stadium Pod Dubnom
Date: Wednesday 15 September
Kick-off: 1945 BST
Our exit in the Champions League last season in the last 16 was hard to stomach and all the more so because it came against Jose Mourinho’s Inter Milan. First up for us in this year’s competition is Slovakian side Zilina away.
MANAGERS’ VIEWS
Zilina might be new to the Champions League but manager Pavel Hapal suggests they won’t be over-awed against us. Ahead of tonight’s game, Hapal says “It’s a great challenge for me and I’m really looking forward to it. On the other hand, we won’t sell ourselves short. We want to show our supporters quality football and we’d like to get some points from our meeting with Chelsea. We respect our opponents; they’re a really big club. Chelsea are obviously superior to us, but football is about 11 players playing against 11 players and we want to walk off with our heads high after the match.”
Carlo Ancelotti certainly isn’t underestimating the Slovakian side though, suggesting “Zilina is a good team. I saw the game against Sparta Prague. They played well both games. They have ability up front, so we have to pay attention to them. We are here to win. We have to stay focused. Our aim is to win this group but it will not be easy. For them it is an important game and we have to pay attention to them.”
SQUAD NEWS
Zilina coach Hapal, looks to have a full squad to choose from having rested key players at the weekend.
For Chelsea, Jose Bosingwa (knee) remains out, Frank Lampard (hernia) also misses out again, Ashley Cole is rested with a minor knock and Didier Drogba is suspended. Branislav Ivanovic moves to right-back with Paulo Ferreira dropping to the bench to accommodate Alex alongside Terry who is expected to return to the Chelsea defence. Daniel Sturridge replaces Drogba in attack while Yossi Benayoun makes his first start in midfield alongside Michael Essien and John Obi Mikel.
TEAMS
ZILINA (possible line-up): Dubravka, Pecalka, Guldan, Mraz, Rilke, Majtan, Jez, Oravec, Piacek, Ceesay, Bello.
CHELSEA: Cech, Ivanovic, Terry, Alex, Zhirkov, Essien, Benayoun, Mikel, Sturridge, Malouda, Anelka.
Subs (from): Turnbull, Hilario, Ferreira, Ramires, Kalou, Kakuta, Van Aanholt, Bruma.
LAST MEETING
These two sides met in the qualifying round of the 2003/04 Champions League and Chelsea won 2-0 (11/2) and 3-0 (13/2) over the two legs.
PREDICTION
As the lowest ranked team in the tournament, Zilina may well be expected to be the whipping boys of the group but the fact they’ve made it to the group stage shows they’re good enough to be there and we shouldn’t underestimate them if we don’t want to embarrass ourselves tonight.
Blue is the colour
