UCL: MSK Zilina V Chelsea – Wednesday, 15th September

MSK Zilina V Chelsea

Wednesday, 15th September – 19:45 GMT
LIVE on Sky Sports 2

UEFA Champions League: Group F

MSK Zilina

Slovakia’s most consistent team over the last decade or so will be competing in their début UEFA Champions League campaign when they play host to a Chelsea side which has appeared in no less than four semi-finals in their previous six attempts. MSK Zilina, who had to sweep aside three teams just to seal their place in the competition proper, are unlikely to stand in the way of their match day 1 rivals from dominating the group, but with French champions Marseille and Russian side Spartak Moscow making up the rest of Group F, there is an outside chance that the Slovakian club could spring a big surprise by continuing their European journey by ensuring they at least avoid a bottom-place finish.

Reaching the Champions League is undoubtedly the club’s stand out achievement in its history, becoming just the third time in Slovakia history to compete in the Champions League proper, but their claim to fame in recent years has been their scalp of Aston Villa in a rare visit to England, beating the Villains 2-1 at Villa Park back in 2008. Just getting a result against the Blues of Chelsea on Wednesday would eclipse  every other achievement in the club’s history, such is the difference in football cultures between Slovakian and English football. Money is scarce in the Slovakian game, with the Champions League being a huge money-spinner for little old Zilina, but they’ll be hoping to take pride home with them as well as a large sum before their European flame finally flutters out.

These two sides have met each other before in the Champions League, strangely enough, although it was a qualifying encounter back in 2002, with Chelsea winning convincingly over two legs by a score of 5-0. Times have changed since then however, with both sides improving a great deal although the gulf in class between the two sides remain substantial, and possibly unbridgeable. Zilina will, nevertheless, be a tough little cookie to crack on home soil, even though their home stadium – Stadium Pod Dubnom – only holds around 11,000 supporters, and the team will be buoyed by the start they’ve made to the new Slovakia league season, getting off to an unbeaten start following four wins and four draws.

Those who claim to know this MSK Zilina team well need a medal, that or some sort of extra curriculum activity, as not a single MSK players rings any bells to us, which can mean one of two things. Either the Slovakian champions aren’t good enough to ply their trade around Europe’s elite league or MSK Zilina are an unknown quantity, a team which could be absolutely anything on the night. We see no reason why it won’t be the first theory considering the amount of scouting which goes on nowadays, so with a lack of established stars, MSK Zilina are likely to be found out at this level, beginning with their opening game of the campaign with English Premier League champions Chelsea.

Player of Note: One player which is worth mentioning is Gambian international Momodou Ceesay who, should he score against Chelsea on Wednesday night, would have found the back of the net in Europe for the fourth game in a row.

Chelsea

Despite winning every domestic accolade under the sun, the one trophy which has still managed to elude Chelsea, and their ambitious owner Roman Abramovich, is the UEFA Champions League. In the last six years of Champions League competition, Chelsea have reached the semi-final of better on four occasions, while they came within a successful spot-kick of clinching Europe’s most coveted prize three years ago on a rainy night in Moscow only for Mr. Chelsea himself, John Terry, to fluff his lines in one of those career defining moments which will forever be remembered unless the Blues go one better sometime soon. They do at least have a Champions League winner at the helm in the form of Carlo Ancelotti, who won the trophy twice while with AC Milan, but will his presence on the touchline be enough to get Chelsea over that long and winding finish line?

There’s little doubt Chelsea boast a manager capable of delivering a Champions League title, while the Italian’s squad is littered with players which should have a European winners medal around their necks but somehow do not. So why has the Champions League proven so elusive for the Blues, with the club seemingly primed and ready to lift aloft the magnificent trophy? It’s a puzzle which has hampered every Chelsea manager’s career, with Jose Mourinho, Avram Grant and Felipe Scolari all seeing the chop because of their failure to land the biggest prize of all; leaving a mountain like pile of pressure for every manager which precedes the next.

Some argue that Chelsea want it too much, which is understandable and definitely true, but they’ve lacked a consistency in their game in recent years, something which appears to be well and truly in their game this time around if their blistering start to the new Premier League season is anything to go by. While their run-in to the new league campaign has been lightweight and favourable to say the very least, Chelsea have made extremely light work of converting their first four fixtures into victories, conceding just one goal en route to maximum points and helping themselves to a extraordinary 17 goals. It’s most certainly the form of champions, as their title rivals will do well to equal their goalscoring feats over the same opponents this season, but they now need to equate a sensational start into their Champions League displays, starting with a commanding performance away in Zilina, Slovakia.

There are a couple of statistics which caught our eye when doing our weekly research; like Chelsea’s tendency to begin the Champions League with a win, having done so on six of the last eight match day 1′s, as well as having lost just twice away from home in Europe in eleven outings. However, the strangest one of all was that Chelsea have bowed out to the eventual champions on the last three occasions. That’s a spooky voodoo if I’ve ever seen one, so should they open with a defeat in Zilina on Wednesday then the Slovakian outfit are in with a shout of winning Europe’s prize above the Blues… If only it worked out as such. This should be straightforward for Chelsea, although they rarely do emphatic away from home. Even so, we don’t expect the Blues to begin with a sluggish and disappointing performance and anything less than three points from their trek across Europe would be a huge shock.

Match Prediction: Chelsea to WIN – 1.25 PaddyPower

We are still unsure as to whether Frank Lampard will feature in Zilina on Wednesday, with the free-scoring Blues midfielder absent from his side’s 3-1 win at West Ham over the weekend, although John Terry will marshal the defence from the off. Florent Malouda is most definitely the improved player at Chelsea this season, beginning like a steam train in the early part and already has four league goals to his name, as does Ivorian powerhouse Didier Drogba, who like Malouda is in magnificent form right now but misses the trip through suspension. In fairness, the entire Chelsea team is on top of their game and it’s difficult to comprehend a Chelsea slip on.

The Blues are rather slim odds to pick up the win everyone expects them to obtain, and we don’t see any reason whatsoever why the won’t collect all the spoils.

Match Odds:

MSK Zilina – 15.00 Bet365
Draw – 6.2 bWin
Chelsea – 1.25 PaddyPower