SBNation.com User Blog: TheMuppet

A Letter To Rafa

TheMuppet — Tue, 07 May 2013 17:38:50 -0000

I loved Roberto Di Matteo; I hated you. Fact.

A lot of Chelsea fans may say that is a bit strong, but I have supported Chelsea for pretty much my whole life (a mere 22 years so far) and I have never supported any other team. I have never hated a team as much as I used to hate Liverpool – everything from their history-harping fans, to their I-can-assault-people-in-bars-and-dive-on-a-weekly-basis-and-still-be-loved-by-all-captain/golden boy Steven Gerrard, to their extensively overrated pretend-footballer/part-time caveman Jamie Carragher, to you, Rafael Benitez. Especially you.

I remember the plastic fans comment. I remember the ghost-goal that knocked us out of the Champions League in a semi final match*. I also remember you slating Didier Drogba, one of our greatest ever players, before a Champions League match only for Drogs to go on and score the winner in that match and then sprint over to your dugout to celebrate in front of you. Of course, I celebrated with him – the image of your face as Drogba celebrated that goal will live with me forever.

*Granted, that wasn't exactly your fault, but it made me hate all things Liverpool a bit more and you were their manager at the time

When we sacked Robbie, I couldn't even find the energy to be angry. Just so, so disappointed in my gutless club for treating such a legend so poorly.

And then we hired you. And that made me angry.

I've seen a lot of strange things while following this club, but never had I hated my club until that moment. Hiring you was like kicking the fans while we were down, in my eyes. It was as if the lack of faith shown in our hero Roberto Di Matteo by the board wasn't deemed humiliating enough; they had to take it one step further, and that was one step too far for me.

For the first time ever, I didn't care whether we won or lost. I didn't care who played well, who played poorly, or who was slating Chelsea for our 'revolving door policy' (that supposedly isn't sustainable, despite a decade full of trophies to back that policy up). For the first time ever, I didn't really care about football.

Slowly, I began to care again – but it was for the wrong reasons. I wanted you to mess up. All I wanted and all I cared about was you getting the sack and seeing you and the board humiliated like we the fans had been.

Then, we heroically came from behind against Man United in the FA Cup to draw 2-2. After the game, I watched all of the players and staff approach the fans and both groups applauded each other. In the background though, waiting near the half way line, I saw you standing there. Alone and unsure of how to act. Not wanting to approach the Chelsea fans for fear of upsetting them after an important and uplifting win. That's when things started to change for me.

I felt a pang of sympathy for you, which I simply didn't think was possible.

Slowly, as the weeks have passed, I've begun to accept that you will be here until the end of the season, and then you will be gone. With just a few games remaining, our Champions League spot is still not 100% assured and we have our most important fixture of the season coming up against Tottenham.

If you can win against Tottenham and secure a third place finish, I will find myself in a position that I'd never thought possible.

While I will still not like you, I will respect that you have come into a difficult situation and given it your best shot. I will have some respect for you and, after the final game of the season, I will hold my hands up and say 'fair play, the man kept us in the top four and he deserves a bit of credit for that'.

In fact, what I would love to see is for you to earn us our Champions League spot, and then at the end of your final match, the fans to give you a simple round of applause as a thank-you gesture before you leave.

We didn't like you and I'm pretty sure that you didn't like us. However, once this is all over, I hope both parties have learnt to have a little bit of respect for each other.

You'll never be a Chelsea legend, but here's your chance to make it off of our 'Most Hated' list. Please take it and give this season some form of a happy ending.

Best of luck,
TheMuppet

I loved Roberto Di Matteo; I hated you. Fact.

*Granted, that wasn't exactly your fault, but it made me hate all things Liverpool a bit more and you were their manager at the time

When we sacked Robbie, I couldn't even find the energy to be angry. Just so, so disappointed in my gutless club for treating such a legend so poorly.

And then we hired you. And that made me angry.

I felt a pang of sympathy for you, which I simply didn't think was possible.

If you can win against Tottenham and secure a third place finish, I will find myself in a position that I'd never thought possible.

We didn't like you and I'm pretty sure that you didn't like us. However, once this is all over, I hope both parties have learnt to have a little bit of respect for each other.

You'll never be a Chelsea legend, but here's your chance to make it off of our 'Most Hated' list. Please take it and give this season some form of a happy ending.

Best of luck,
TheMuppet

Fernando Torres Is Not A Chelsea Player

TheMuppet — Sat, 17 Nov 2012 17:49:42 -0000

Well, I mean technically I guess he is – if my information is correct, he has a contract with Chelsea Football Club until the end of the 2016 season. But is he really a Chelsea player?

Fernando Torres was born in Fuenlabrada; a city located roughly 25km away from Atletico Madrid's stadium, the Vicente Calderon Stadium. Fernando adopted Atletico as his boyhood team from an early age as his grandfather also supported Atletico. In 1995 at 11 years of age, Fernando Torres was spotted by scouts from his beloved club and offered a trial which subsequently led to Torres being invited into the clubs youth system.

I can only imagine how that must have felt for him. As much of a cliché as this is, signing for the club you support is the sort of thing that every young (and old) football fan dreams of.

Things went well for him at Atletico and he would make his first team debut on the 27th May 2001 at home against CD Leganes. As a virtually unknown 17 year old fan of the club, there was pretty much no pressure on him to succeed immediately. He'd only have to wait a further week before he got his first goal for the club he loved, and he never looked back.

He went on to score 91 goals in 243 matches for Madrid: that's an average of 2.7 games per goal (GPG), which isn't an earth moving stat but also isn't the worst in the world – our own Man-God Didier Drogba managed an average of 2.2 GPG in his time at Chelsea (157 goals in 341 games).

In the summer of 2006, Chelsea made a bid for Fernando Torres. The offer was accepted by Atletico before Torres himself turned down the opportunity to move to Stamford Bridge and remained in Spain. I'm no psychic wonder but had Torres taken the jump from Madrid to London, I'd guess that he may have found life at Chelsea a little easier to adapt to than he did when he eventually decided to join us in 2011.

Expectations of him would have been significantly lower a) because he'd be a foreign import with no Premier League experience and therefore would have been given plenty of time to settle in to the team and league and b) because he wouldn't have cost us £50M in 2006 like he did in 2011 (this is assuming we'd have paid around £20M like Liverpool did in 2007 when they eventually purchased him).

So what I'm really saying here, Fernando, is that if you'd have just given in to the Dark Side (aka Chelsea, according to the public media) and joined us in 2006, you'd have saved yourself a lot of pressure and general trouble, you'd have saved Chelsea an extra £30M(ish) which I'm sure Mr. Abramovich would have appreciated and you'd have saved yourself a lot (Okay, maybe not a lot, maybe just a bit) of abuse from those Scouse History-Harpers at Anfield! Tsk.

So instead of joining the worst club in the history of mankind in 2006, he stayed on at Atletico for one more season and joined one of our arch-rivals, Liverpool, in 2007 (Or then arch-rivals. Let's be honest, they're a mid-table team now...hehehe!).

I'm not very keen on Liverpool so I don't want to talk about them too much, but we all know how things started off for Mr. Torres at Anfield. Much like his start at Atletico, Torres scored in just his second league game. To make things even sweeter for him, it was his first appearance at Anfield and he'd scored against one of Liverpool's fiercest rivals and one of the best defences in Europe in Chelsea.

Taking all that into account, it's understandable that the fans and the club fell in love with the Spaniard immediately. As much as it pains me to say this, Liverpool is a historic and romantic football club and when Anfield rocks, it's a very unique atmosphere. Take all that into account and add to it that Torres became Liverpool's poster boy and it's easy to see why he fell in love with the club.

What I'm trying to say is Fernando Torres loved Atletico and he loved Liverpool. During his time at those clubs, he really played for them – which brings me back to what I said at the beginning of this article. Yes, Torres has a contract with Chelsea, but does he really play for the club?

He grew up to become the top dog at Atletico, He then moved to Liverpool and strolled into the place as the top dog there. Then he came to Chelsea to find that Fluffy the Three-Headed Dog from the first Harry Potter movie had already made himself at home in London (I'm talking about Drogba as Fluffy, in case you hadn't cottoned onto it yet) and he sat in the corner and done a little poop.

Don't get me wrong, I like Fernando Torres. There's nothing more that I'd like than for Torres to go on some crazy goalscoring run and end the season with 25 league goals. I've defended him to the hilt like many other Chelsea fans against opposing fans who claim he's been the biggest waste of money in history, and I think he's genuinely grateful to the Chelsea fans for the support we've given him, but in my eyes he just doesn't do the business any more.

A lot of strikers are only at their best when they play for a club that loves them and they love back. Didier Drogba is our example. He loved the club and we loved him back. When he stepped onto the pitch in a Chelsea shirt, he didn't want to let the people or the club that he loved down and it showed. Personally, I don't get the same feeling from Torres.

Well, I mean technically I guess he is – if my information is correct, he has a contract with Chelsea Football Club until the end of the 2016 season. But is he really a Chelsea player?

I can only imagine how that must have felt for him. As much of a cliché as this is, signing for the club you support is the sort of thing that every young (and old) football fan dreams of.