Why I believe my team is capable of overturning the two-goal deficit and reaching the European Cup final
by Claudio Ranieri
AMONG other things, a manager is paid to make decisions. When they work out, he is hailed as brilliant. When they don’t, he must take the blame. I said clearly after our loss in Monaco that I took responsibility for my decisions. After all, it was I who changed our formation and who made the substitutions.
Thirty years in football — and my fair share of victories and defeats — have taught me that is the way the game works. The manager has control and the manager faces the consequences, whether good or bad.
I would like, however, to explain why I did what I did against AS Monaco. I think it is important to illustrate the logical thought process behind it. People can then agree or disagree and, on the night, it obviously didn’t work out the way I hoped, but there were specific reasons why I made certain decisions.
At half-time, the score was level at 1-1 and the mood was excellent in the dressing-room. The lads were telling me: “We can win this, we can beat these guys tonight!” I thought we had done well, but Monaco were well-organised defensively and I felt that we needed something different to break them down. Hugo Ibarra, their right back, was having an excellent game against Jesper Gronkjaer. Gronkjaer ’s strength is running at people and creating width, but, on this night, Ibarra was shutting him down. So I replaced him with Juan Sebastián Verón. I knew he was coming back from a long injury, but, in his first outing, against Middlesbrough (on Saturday, April 10), he looked sharp after coming on as a substitute.
Verón is a different sort of player from Gronkjaer. He is capable of providing the defence-splitting pass and creating chances from deeper positions. I thought that, by putting him in, Ibarra would have to adjust to a different type of threat and this could cause Monaco problems.
The sending-off of Akis Zikos a few minutes later changed the game. All of a sudden we had the man advantage, and it felt as if the pendulum had swung in our direction. That’s when I made the decision to go for it, to try to close out the tie that night. I thought that by sending on another striker we could pin them back and create the chance for a winning goal.
Yes, it was a gamble, but a calculated risk. I had two strikers on the bench, Jimmy Floyd Hasselbaink and Adrian Mutu. I picked Hasselbaink because Mutu was not 100 per cent fit and I thought that, by playing him on the right of the front three, he could use his superior physical presence against Patrice Evra, their left back,who is small and quick.
Of course, this meant I had to take somebody off. It was not an easy choice, but the logical candidate to me seemed to be Mario Melchiot. I knew that Scott Parker had the intelligence and versatility to fill in as an emergency right back and I was a little concerned because Melchiot had already been booked, and I could tell the referee was watching him closely. We could not afford to have a man sent off as well.
The plan worked for a while. We created two good chances for Hasselbaink and he was unlucky not to score. But Parker was struggling. I wasn’t sure if it was a muscular problem or if he had picked up a knock, but he was not 100 per cent. With William Gallas and Glen Johnson injured, I had to ask Robert Huth, a central defender, to come on at right back.
I don’t need to remind anybody that Monaco scored twice in the last 12 minutes. My strategy had backfired. We spent too much time on the ball, everybody tried to do too much and they took advantage. That’s football. You make a decision, you formulate a strategy and everything can go wrong.
I said after the game that we have a 20 per cent chance of going through to the final, but the percentage doesn’t matter. Whether it’s 5, 10 or 90 per cent, we have to believe in that percentage, however small or large it may be. Great players seize the chance. If Arsenal, Real Madrid or AC Milan were in our position, they would go for it and believe. I expect Chelsea to do the same.
Monaco have the advantage, but the tie is still open. Had we lost 1-0, most would say we still had a good chance of reversing the result. Yet a 1-0 deficit would mean that we needed to score two goals. Which is exactly what we need to do now. A 2-0 victory will get us to the final. In that sense, while the 3-1 defeat hurt, it is not insurmountable.
Do we have the strength — mental and physical — to overturn this result and advance to the final? Yes. My players have shown it before. After the 1-1 home draw against Arsenal in the quarter-finals, many said we were out. Instead, we believed in ourselves, went to Highbury and won 2-1.
That’s the kind of spirit we will need on Wednesday week at Stamford Bridge. We have done it before. We can do it again.
by Claudio Ranieri
AMONG other things, a manager is paid to make decisions. When they work out, he is hailed as brilliant. When they don’t, he must take the blame. I said clearly after our loss in Monaco that I took responsibility for my decisions. After all, it was I who changed our formation and who made the substitutions.
Thirty years in football — and my fair share of victories and defeats — have taught me that is the way the game works. The manager has control and the manager faces the consequences, whether good or bad.
I would like, however, to explain why I did what I did against AS Monaco. I think it is important to illustrate the logical thought process behind it. People can then agree or disagree and, on the night, it obviously didn’t work out the way I hoped, but there were specific reasons why I made certain decisions.
At half-time, the score was level at 1-1 and the mood was excellent in the dressing-room. The lads were telling me: “We can win this, we can beat these guys tonight!” I thought we had done well, but Monaco were well-organised defensively and I felt that we needed something different to break them down. Hugo Ibarra, their right back, was having an excellent game against Jesper Gronkjaer. Gronkjaer ’s strength is running at people and creating width, but, on this night, Ibarra was shutting him down. So I replaced him with Juan Sebastián Verón. I knew he was coming back from a long injury, but, in his first outing, against Middlesbrough (on Saturday, April 10), he looked sharp after coming on as a substitute.
Verón is a different sort of player from Gronkjaer. He is capable of providing the defence-splitting pass and creating chances from deeper positions. I thought that, by putting him in, Ibarra would have to adjust to a different type of threat and this could cause Monaco problems.
The sending-off of Akis Zikos a few minutes later changed the game. All of a sudden we had the man advantage, and it felt as if the pendulum had swung in our direction. That’s when I made the decision to go for it, to try to close out the tie that night. I thought that by sending on another striker we could pin them back and create the chance for a winning goal.
Yes, it was a gamble, but a calculated risk. I had two strikers on the bench, Jimmy Floyd Hasselbaink and Adrian Mutu. I picked Hasselbaink because Mutu was not 100 per cent fit and I thought that, by playing him on the right of the front three, he could use his superior physical presence against Patrice Evra, their left back,who is small and quick.
Of course, this meant I had to take somebody off. It was not an easy choice, but the logical candidate to me seemed to be Mario Melchiot. I knew that Scott Parker had the intelligence and versatility to fill in as an emergency right back and I was a little concerned because Melchiot had already been booked, and I could tell the referee was watching him closely. We could not afford to have a man sent off as well.
The plan worked for a while. We created two good chances for Hasselbaink and he was unlucky not to score. But Parker was struggling. I wasn’t sure if it was a muscular problem or if he had picked up a knock, but he was not 100 per cent. With William Gallas and Glen Johnson injured, I had to ask Robert Huth, a central defender, to come on at right back.
I don’t need to remind anybody that Monaco scored twice in the last 12 minutes. My strategy had backfired. We spent too much time on the ball, everybody tried to do too much and they took advantage. That’s football. You make a decision, you formulate a strategy and everything can go wrong.
I said after the game that we have a 20 per cent chance of going through to the final, but the percentage doesn’t matter. Whether it’s 5, 10 or 90 per cent, we have to believe in that percentage, however small or large it may be. Great players seize the chance. If Arsenal, Real Madrid or AC Milan were in our position, they would go for it and believe. I expect Chelsea to do the same.
Monaco have the advantage, but the tie is still open. Had we lost 1-0, most would say we still had a good chance of reversing the result. Yet a 1-0 deficit would mean that we needed to score two goals. Which is exactly what we need to do now. A 2-0 victory will get us to the final. In that sense, while the 3-1 defeat hurt, it is not insurmountable.
Do we have the strength — mental and physical — to overturn this result and advance to the final? Yes. My players have shown it before. After the 1-1 home draw against Arsenal in the quarter-finals, many said we were out. Instead, we believed in ourselves, went to Highbury and won 2-1.
That’s the kind of spirit we will need on Wednesday week at Stamford Bridge. We have done it before. We can do it again.
