Find out the secrets of the big team from Chelsea in the 90's! GSP talked to Roberto Di Matteo!

England. London. Stamford Bridge. No, this is not the address which Roman Abramovici’s GPS shows when the Russian pronounces in a quasi English "Chelsea". It is much more than that. The place in which The Blues have hurdled step-by-step the obstacles from the mediocrity way, the stadium of a team excluded from the craziness of derbies from the capital, but synonym today with the absolute sportive luxury.

What did propel the brand Chelsea in the eyes of Europe and Abramovici, who decided in 2003 to transform it in an investment found based on an "unlimited capital"?  Rebuilt from nothing, the club gained its respect step-by-step; it replaced the conservatism with the fantasy of some players like Gullitt, Mark Hughes, Zola, Vialli or Di Matteo and proposed its own history of the events.

Yes, in the team which changed the cognition of the majority about Chelsea was also Dan Petrescu, the man whom the hopes of League 1 are related to righteously for a place in the European spring. His best friend from the middle line whom Gullitt obliged to explain the term "sexy football" in Premier League, Roberto Di Matteo, has a story similar with that of the Romanian. He started his career of coach by chance, he loves London and he accepted to invest his hopes in a project which few persons had seen it coherent.

The Premier League Dream


- Schaffhausen, Zurich, Roma, London. It is not the story of a veritable Italian.
- Even my wife told me this. I grew up in family of workers, but I have always been happy. I could follow my dream, I reached to play football and to be convoked in the national team of Italy, I played at Chelsea, I won trophies, many nice things happened to me and I prefer to highlight these than to regret those that I have missed.

- You have transferred in Premier League in a moment when neither the internal competition from England, nor the Chelsea, was in the European top.
- I have made a very good choice! It has been easy for me to adapt, I has an extraordinary felicity to have colleagues who made me helped me to accommodate. I have met Zola, Gullitt, Vialli, the players who had played in Series A and next to them I obtained fantastic successes.


"Watch out Ronaldo!"


- That’s right, it followed an extraordinary time for you as part of that group.
- What nice memories! We have won the League Cup, the England Cup, the Cup of the Cups, the Super-Cup of Europe; these are the things you remember when you retire. It doesn’t matter how much you work, what sacrifices you make, as long as you see that the thing you are struggling day by day comes to life.

- You are the scorer of the fastest goal in a final of England Cup disputed on the old Wembley. Have you felt any regret when the "Temple" had been broke down?
- As I said, we remain with the memories. Maybe it seems a cliché, but the final victory gave me a much bigger happiness than the fact that I scored. Wembley is a stadium which invites to make show, it is impossible not to want to play at least once there. The new arena is impressive, I am glad that I am part of the history of one of the British football symbols.

- You played next to, but also against great champions. What players did you prefer to have in your team and whom you wanted to avoid as adversary?
- Oh, this is hard to say. It is normal to wish and play with Zola or Maldini, and it is good to avoid the Brazilian Ronaldo


The friend Dan Petrescu

- Dan Petrescu?
- (he laughs) Yeah, Dan! We have so much incredible moments at Chelsea, but the most beautiful are those lived on the ground. When you touch the cold metal of a cup you realize what are the moments that really matter, the same happened with our generation. We were all friends, we went together a round and we could make jokes without being afraid that the other team mates might have misunderstood us, those were times which is impossible to forget.


Elected manager at MK Dons from a list of 40 candidates!
After he retired, Roberto attended the program of the European School of Economics from London in order to complete his studies, but he neither neglected football. The Italian commented for the Swiss television the matches from the European Championship 2008, but he also attended some courses to obtain the coach license.

"Then I truly felt that I wanted to return, I had inside me an extraordinary wish to make again something important in football. I received a phone call from MK Dons, I said to go to the interview, it was just an experience from which I could learn", remembers modestly Di Matteo. But, the British press revealed that the Italian had outranked the other 40 managers who had applied to that job, among the most important CVs being those of Steve Cotterill or Ian Holloway.

The success he had from the very first season with Dons, where he has just missed the promotion in Championship, confirmed his intentions to the leaders of WBA, who decided to offer a contract after the separation from Tony Mowbray, in the summer.