A gentleman to the end

I can’t remember the exact date, but it was in the early summer of 1996 that I was passing through the 8th floor of the Philips offices in Croydon when I heard, from within a desk cubicle, “Fuck me! They’ve signed Vialli!”. A marketing manager and fellow Chelsea fan had just received a text message telling him that Gianluca Vialli - who had, just days before, been the Champions League-winning captain of Juventus - had signed for Chelsea on a free transfer. 

It’s hard to describe, even now, how Earth shattering this news was. Even in 1996, with Manchester United in the middle of their imperious domination of English football, it was unusual for a proper European superstar to join a Premier League club, let alone a player who had just won the European Cup as captain of ‘The Old Lady’ of Turin. And now he was joining an apparently underwhelming club that hadn’t won a major trophy in 26 years. 

Vialli’s arrival at Chelsea can be seen as significant in the transformation of English football. It is inseparable from the rise of the Premier League as the world’s most lucrative football competition, attracting stellar talent and broadcasters willing to pay top dollar to watch them. A month or so before Vialli joined the club it had appointed Ruud Gullit as, initially, player-manager. The Dutchman was, himself, a glamorous, ‘sexy’ European idol whose own move to Chelsea - even long after his playing usefulness had evaporated - brought stardust to West London.

Vialli was Gullit’s first, and unlikely, signing. But even with the striker being presented to the press holding a Chelsea shirt, it was hard at first for fans to grasp the concept of such a European football giant in their midst. Gullit, who’d won three Serie A titles and two European Cups with AC Milan, had been brought to Chelsea by Glenn Hoddle the year before, at the start of the club’s change in fortunes. It still took some getting used to the idea of a Ballon d’Or and a two-time World Soccer Player Of The Year winner on the club’s books. The acquisition of ‘name’ players like Mark Hughes suggested that Chelsea were emerging from near calamitous times in the late 1970s and early 1980s when the club yo-yo’d between the old First and Second Divisions, and even flirted with financial collapse. Its relative resurgence was being part-propelled by millionaire Matthew Harding who became a director in 1993. With Gullit replacing Hoddle, his Filofax of international connections soon brought in Vialli, followed by fellow Italians Gianfranco Zola and Roberto Di Matteo. Suddenly, Chelsea Football Club looked glamorous again, even if they hadn’t actually won anything.

Italian football was very much in vogue in 1996. Italia 90 had made us all fall in love with the country and its footballing culture, aided also by Channel 4’s Football Italia in 1992, presented by James Richardson. By 1996, those who knew their football, knew Gianluca Vialli. Those who knew their Serie A, knew what Vialli’s arrival at Chelsea meant. My Philips colleague’s expletive exclamation was entirely justified. This was on a par with, say George Clooney joining the cast of EastEnders.

Having just turned 32 when he signed for Chelsea, there were the inevitable sniffy comments from rival supporters that the apparently nouveau riche Chelsea had acquired Vialli on a free because he’d exceeded his usefulness in Italy. Not so. In his time as a player at the club, he went on to score 40 goals in 88 appearances. Two of those goals came in his first season: in January 1997 Chelsea faced Liverpool at home in the FA Cup fourth round. 2-0 down at half time, Hughes and Zola clawed back a goal each early in the second half, even with Chelsea having lost defender Scott Minto to a red card. Chelsea’s comeback was completed by goals from Vialli in the 63rd and 76th minutes. His legendary status at the club was secured within his first few months as a player. Chelsea would go on to win the FA Cup that season, with Di Matteo scoring his famous goal against Middleborough after just 42 seconds of play at Wembley. I was there, and just as Vialli’s arrival had been somewhat other-worldly, to see the club I’d supported since childhood winning one of the greatest trophies in sport, for the only time in my conscious lifetime, was another moment to bewilder. 

When Gullit was sacked in February 1998, Vialli followed the Dutchman’s earlier transition from player to player-manager and took over. His first game in charge was a League Cup semi-final against Arsenal, before which he gave each of his players a glass of champagne in the changing room. Chelsea went on to win 3-1, reversing Arsenal’s lead from the first leg. It’s a small piece of the Vialli legend, but a compelling snapshot of just why his death, announced yesterday, has brought a palpable pall over football, and the Chelsea community.

People talk lovingly about footballing greats when they die, but I’ve never heard of a player as loved or as revered as Vialli. I once let him pass me on the stairs leading down from the East Stand commentary box at Stamford Bridge and felt a genuine presence, even if he was wrapped up in an ostentatiously Italian scarf, coat and hat combination. I’m not easily starstruck (I’ve met plenty of musicians and actors in my career), but to even stand in the same space as Vialli was a ‘moment’, simply because of what he represented in his relatively brief time at Chelsea. 

While the sort of success that came in the Abramovich era was still somewhat beyond the club’s reach when Vialli was in charge, he still took them to the quarter-finals of their first ever Champions League run (which included a 3-1 victory over Barcelona) and another FA Cup trophy in 2000, beating Aston Villa. In total, he won five trophies with the club in less than three years, including the European Cup Winners’ Cup, making Vialli - at 33 - the youngest manager to win a major European trophy. The silverware alone, in my mind, qualifies  him still as one of the greatest figures to have ever played or worked for Chelsea.

In its obituary the club itself wrote: “As soon as he walked through the door at Stamford Bridge, when already a global football star, Luca declared his wish to become a Chelsea legend. It is a target he undoubtedly reached, revered for his work on the pitch and in the dugout during some of the most successful years in our history. Loved by fans, players and staff at Stamford Bridge, Luca will be sorely missed not just by the Chelsea community, but the entire footballing world, including in his native Italy, where he was such an iconic figure.”

These are the words you invariably read when a much loved figure in football passes on. But for me, at least, laden with poignancy. Indeed, it’s hard to imagine someone in the game to endear himself so profoundly to fans and those he worked with. Everyone seems to note how charming he was, funny and, despite his prodigious achievements in the game, even long before he came to SW6, lacking the rampaging ego so many big names in the sport seem to possess today. His likeability, amongst the Chelsea fanbase, was enhanced by his wholesale embrace of London and the sense of Italian style he brought to it. For years I’ve worn black V-neck sweaters purely because Vialli did.

Nothing at Chelsea lasts forever, and after indifferent performances early in the 2000-2001 season, leading to a strained relationship between Vialli and his players, the club sacked him. The consensus was that Chelsea had, with Gullit and then Vialli, tried and failed with two legends of the game as young player-managers. That said, the approach had still managed to net silverware that had proven elusive since the 1970s. Perhaps, too, in appointing Claudio Ranieri, the club had learned that a foreign perspective and a little Italian charm went a long way.

News that Vialli had been diagnosed with pancreatic cancer first emerged in November 2018, but after 18 months of chemotherapy - and out of the spotlight - he was given the all-clear. Still, though, the Italian remained typically modest, telling a TV interviewer in his home country, with remarkable honesty: “I cannot fight with cancer because I would not be able to win this battle, it is a much stronger opponent than me. Cancer is an unwanted travel companion, but I can't help it.” Defiantly, though, he kept going. “I have to go ahead and travel with my head down, never giving up, hoping that one day this unwanted guest will get tired and leave peacefully for many years because there are still so many things I want to do in this life.” 

In 2019 Vialli joined his former Sampdoria strike partner Roberto Mancini in the Italian national set up. But at the end of last year the cancer returned, and he stepped down from his role with the Azzurri. Presciently, in March last year, he’d told a Netflix documentary: “I know that I probably will not die of old age, I hope to live as long as possible, but I feel much more fragile than before.”

Picture: Getty Images

Vialli handled his cancer journey with humility, even devoting a book to it - Goals: Inspirational Stories To Help Tackle Life’s Challenges, a compendium of stories examining the human spirit. Reading it again now, it reflects both his courage and his sense of humour. “Illness can teach a lot about who you are, and can push you to go beyond the superficial way in which we live,” he said at one point.

“I can‘t tell you how good a guy he was,” a visibly moved Graeme Souness told Sky Sports yesterday morning, minutes after the news of Vialli’s death had been announced. Like Mancini, the Scot had played with Vialli at Sampdoria. “Forget football for a minute, he was just a gorgeous soul. He was a truly nice human being,” Souness added. “I went to Italy when I was 31-years-old. He was 20 and he was just fabulous to be around. Such a fun loving guy, he was full of mischief. He was such a warm individual and a fabulous player.“

“I think it’s so typical of him that he kept [his cancer] very private, very personal and he took it on as I’d expect him to take it on,” Souness said. “It was his fight, wanted to deal with it himself, didn't want to burden other people with it.”

Like so many successful sportsmen and women, Luca Vialli was a serial winner. The sight of him celebrating Italy’s success over England in the Euro 2020 final at Wembley brought no pleasure to me as an English supporter, but still brought a smile to my face - a footballing hero revelling in victory. Of course, it’s a sight you see with any sporting endeavour reaching a conclusive outcome, but somehow, the fact that it was Vialli made it more enjoyable. Satisfying, even.

Apart from that fleeting encounter on the staircase at Stamford Bridge, I never met Gianluca Vialli. Why would I have done? When he came to Chelsea he was a near-mythical football God. In real terms he may not have spent all that long at the club, but his death has affected me more than I expected. He didn’t know me, and I didn’t know him, but I feel compelled to make the same statement as did Carlo Ancelotti, Vialli’s former Sampdoria teammate and another effortlessly cool Italian who held the title ‘Chelsea manager’: “Ciao amico mio”.

Gianluca Vialli - 1964-2023

Grotesque doesn’t even cover it

The other evening I happened across an episode of Dad’s Army, 'Is There Honey For Tea?', in which the Walmington-on-Sea Home Guard rally around Private Godfrey and his sisters Dolly and Cissy when their idyllic Cherry Tree Cottage comes under threat of demolition. The house is a perfect rose-decorated slice of bucolic English perfection which, Sergeant Wilson wistfully remarks is “just what we are fighting for”. Britain was a different place in 1975, when the episode first went out, beset by grey skies, strikes and British Leyland cars, an altogether different era to the somewhat confected view of tradition which, even as the set-up for comedy, that episode of Dad’s Army set out to convey. But it brought home a point. Tradition does count.

The timing of the episode going out was prescient. Tradition is under attack again from the announcement that England’s so-called ‘Big Six’ league clubs - Manchester United, Liverpool, Arsenal, Chelsea, Tottenham Hotspur and Manchester City - are to join a new and exclusive European Super League along with Real Madrid, Barcelona, Atlético Madrid, AC Milan, Internazionale and Juventus (notably, none of the likes of Bayern Munich, Ajax or PSG are involved). It’s been some time coming: the clubs are believed to have been in talks for some time about creating their own rival to the Champions League, but formal confirmation of the consortium has brought the morality of it all into acute focus.

Football supporters, commentators, the domestic leagues and politicians have all, quite rightly, condemned the plan. There have been murmurings of points deductions, international player bans and other sanctions for those clubs who take part. Overall, the move has been roasted, demonstrating the grotesque arrogance of football clubs in failing to understand the ethos of what supporting football is all about, and why fans are prepared to dip into their hard-earned to follow clubs at every level for sometimes perverse and random reasons. 

I make no secret of my patronage of Chelsea, one of the clubs who’ve signed up for this folly. And it’s not out of arriviste glory-hunting, either: I started visiting Stamford Bridge as a child, when the club was near bankrupt, flirting with the old Third Division, and crowds of just 7,000 were turning up to see warhorses like Micky Droy and Ron Harris kick lumps out of opponents. Liverpool were then the dominant English side - even Ipswich were in the ascendancy - and the sort of riches that surround Chelsea today weren’t even dancing on the wildest stages of our imagination. That’s not why went to the Bridge. It was our club, just as whichever berth you call your home club is yours. It is, of course, an added bonus if you have superstars to watch. Even better if your club gets to play the European elite - nothing gets the hackles up quite like watching a load of cynical Spaniards falling over a lot in front of you on a Wednesday evening. But to some extent, this is mere confection, fairy dust sprinkled on the more prosaic form that is the Beautiful Game.

"We have all spoken forever about the importance of the ‘pyramid’ - the dream, the aspiration of clubs developing, they fall, they get promoted,” former  Football Association and Manchester City chairman David Bernstein told Sky News this morning. “Clubs like Manchester City who, 20 years ago, were in the first division and playing Gillingham in a play-off final at Wembley, become what they are now. Leicester City now have punched above their weight. "So I think you are moving all that dream, that aspiration, and I think that's sad and very dangerous."

Football fans have expressed similar sentiment, especially supporters associations of the clubs embroiled in the breakaway. The Chelsea Supporters' Trust branded it “the ultimate betrayal" and a decision made “with no consideration for the loyal supporters, our history, our future or the future of football in this." One Liverpool group accused the club’s US-based owner, Fenway Sports Group, of appropriating a property that is "ours not theirs”, while another said it was withdrawing support to a club “which puts financial greed above integrity of the game.” The Manchester United Supporters Group posted a picture of the Grim Reaper kicking a football on its website, along with a statement opining that the new league “has no sporting merit and would seem to be motivated by greed,” adding that it had been created without any input from the grass roots of the club’s support. "These owners, irrespective of where they come from, seem to think football belongs to them; it doesn't it belongs to us - the supporters - irrespective of which team we support."

I’m not saying that Doncaster Rovers are any closer to playing Real Madrid in the Champions League, but why can’t they aspire to the Premier League and therefore a shot at a top four place? Unlikely that they would, but who is to decree that they can’t, simply because a self-appointed elite has elected to create a closed shop into which only they can play. And for those fans of clubs in this super league - do we really want to play the same 11 teams all the time, including six we meet at least twice a season in our home league? There’s no dodging the fact that competition for the Premier League title and for the Champions League itself is dominated by the same clubs season in, season out, but there’s still enough margin for variety that we can, for example, see West Ham challenging for a Top Four league finish this season, and thus a shot at the European elite next season at the expense of one of the so-called big six.

Tradition, of course, doesn’t even enter the equation. It’s all about cold hard cash. Larceny, actually. The big clubs and their owners have shown their true colours and a patent absence of any understanding of what they’re custodians of. By reducing European club competition to, essentially, an exhibition tournament, they are effectively turning the 12 teams into football’s version of the Harlem Globetrotters. I’m sure we’ll see all the tricks in the book, but it will soon get pretty boring watching them play the Washington Generals every time. European nights haven’t been made by predictability, but by the complete reverse. We still talk now of José Mourinho leading Porto to the Champions League title in 2004, or even further back, Brian Clough doing the same with Nottingham Forest, twice. 

What I bridle with the most is that these clubs believe, to begin with, themselves to be a self-appointed elite. Even thinking about my own club, Chelsea are where they are today thanks to Roman Abramovich's largesse. Do Arsenal or Tottenham have any right to see themselves as elite on their form this season? No, and frankly that statement extends back even further. Elsewhere, neither Liverpool or Manchester United have been exactly polished this term, ditto Barcelona and Real Madrid. The only thing that distinguishes these clubs is the wealth behind them.

What the proprietors have declared, in forming the super league, is their disdain for everyone else, and that frankly is the ugliest aspect of all this. I’m not going to pretend that football is a purely altruistic sport, where hard work and endeavour is the only measure of progress. Because clearly when you’re able to spend £70 million on a single player, whereas other clubs in your same domain struggle to spend that on a squad refresh, you’ve got a performance advantage (even if the litany of expensive flops proves that all that glitters isn’t always gold). Essentially, the breakaway clubs have given a massive ‘up yours’ to the rest of football. They have even doubled down on this by taking pre-emptive “protective steps” to legally prevent football authorities from taking sanctions out against the clubs, with measures talked of including players being banned from playing for their countries, one of the ultimate objectives they strive for.

Let me return to this thing about tradition. It’s a thorny subject. A procession of interviewees today have referred constantly to the role all football clubs, even the big ‘corporate’ behemoths, historically play in their communities, and that the big six are showing this contempt. They will all dispute that, going to great lengths to demonstrate their community programmes, from grass roots support to dispatching their first team to children’s wards at Christmas. But you can’t ignore that even the most historic clubs now looking to join the super league are living a world away from the traditions they come from. 

“He’s more machine than man,” Obi-Wan Kenobe tells Luke Skywalker about his former protege, Anakin in the 'first' Star Wars film. You could say that about the clubs involved in this venture.  “They pretend ‘You’ll Never Walk Alone’, the people’s club, the fans’ club,” railed Gary Neville yesterday about Liverpool. And he had this for the club he played for: “Manchester United, 100 years, born out of workers. And they are breaking away into a league without competition, that they can’t be relegated from? It is an absolute disgrace. We have to wrestle back power in this country from the clubs at the top of this league, and that includes my club.” His former manager Sir Alex Ferguson - who remains a director at the club - told Reuters: “Talk of a Super League is a move away from 70 years of European club football.”

You could take a step back, breathe, and conclude that football is in constant flux. That progress should be embraced. Even Private Godfrey concluded that if his cottage had to be destroyed for the war effort, so be it. We can easily descend into romanticism, but I think that risks missing the point. We support the clubs we follow - regardless of their status - because of something else, something intangible. Even we Chelsea fans, contrary to the jibes, are not glory hunters. We’ve endured bad times and frustrations. We even appreciate the good fortune we find ourselves in, to follow extravagantly financed teams staffed by exciting talent. But that doesn’t entitle the custodians of our clubs’ histories to ride roughshod over them and our patronage. 

You could even take the harder view that football has been a divided kingdom for a long time, of an elite and all the rest. In the grand scheme of things, does anything fundamentally change with this super league? Yes, pretty much the same clubs who vie each season for the knockout stages of the Champions League are involved in it, but there’s a fundamental here: there’s no reason why other clubs can’t also be in the mix, working their way up the pyramid. And that’s what we scream and shout for. Not some glorified showcase, a friendly tournament in all but name, and one designed purely to line the pockets of the proprietors, and do nothing for the humble supporter, many of whom will be now questioning where they put their disposable income when it comes to football.

Glad it's all over?

Picture: Twitter/Chelsea FC

So that's it. Barring the Women's World Cup and the UEFA Nations League (no, me neither...), the European Under-21 Championship and the Africa Cup Of Nations, that's football over for another season. Two months off, for those of us who worship at the altar of The Beautiful Game™. For the players not involved in such meagre summer nibbles, it's a few weeks on the beach before pre-season and the whole circus gets going again.

However, before Season 2018-19 turns to dust, some reflection. The general assessment of the Premier League is that the right team - Manchester City - won it. Wherever you stand on clubs funded by bottomless riches, Pep Guardiola's side presented a brand of football that came as close to perfection as you could hope to see. I take some pride in that Chelsea were one of the few teams to beat City in the league (2-0 at Stamford Bridge in December), and that they took the Mancunians to a penalty shootout in the League Cup final. We'll gloss over the 6-0 spanking City gave us in February at the Etihad.

City's awesomeness notwithstanding, this has not been a vintage domestic season. Liverpool, bless them, did a decent job keeping up with their north-western rivals, but the chasing pack - in final order,  Chelsea, Tottenham, Arsenal and Manchester United - appeared at times to be competing with all the dedication of two bald men fighting over a comb. Just imagine if all six teams had really made a go of it? Perhaps there was mitigation: Spurs yet to establish a winning rhythm with their impressive new stadium (or, alternatively, it all went Spursy again); Arsenal still adjusting to life after Arsène Wenger; Manchester United readjusting to life after their frustrating flirtation with José Mourinho, and then finding that turning to a favoured son may not be the answer, either.

Which brings me to Chelsea. Towards the end of the previous season, as it was clear things were turning sour between the club and Antonio Conte, and that yet another managerial departure was inevitable, few knew what lay in store with Napoli's Maurizio Sarri touted as the next Italian in the hotseat at the Bridge. Those plugged into the Italian football jungle drums were hearing exciting things about the unprepossessing Neopolitan, who'd gone from commercial banker to football manager in the lower leagues of Tuscan football, to all of a sudden bringing a brand of football to Napoli that, while not successfully tipping Juventus off the top of Serie A, ran the Turinese giants close. So, building on a tradition of managerial gambles (Villas-Boas, Scolari and even the premature appointments of Vialli and di Matteo come to mind) Chelsea, with their owner somewhat preoccupied with visa wrangles in the UK, punted for the 60-year-old Sarri. If I skip forward a year, on paper you can't argue with third place behind City and Liverpool in the league, a Wembley final and, now, winners of the Europa League. By any token of success, Chelsea have done well this season. It's just that there's not a lot of celebration going on.

Something about Sarri just hasn't connected with the fanbase. Even Conte, when he was starting to sulk, was still routinely serenaded by the faithful singing "Antonio! Antonio! Antonio!". Notably, no such thing with "Maurizio!", a name with an identical syllabic scan. I've never been a fan of fan power: just because we have an elevated view from our seat doesn't give us any authority over a coach who works with his players every single day. What arrogance do we have to suggest that a professional manager knows less than us? On Callum Hudson-Odoi, Sarri was, in principle, quite correct in his assessment that, pre-injury, the teenager had a lot to learn about his game, especially in the defensive phase. Similarly, Ruben Loftus-Cheek, whose muscularly elegant attacking play is the kind that every football fan wants to see, especially from homegrown player, but whose physical rigour over the course of 90 minutes has been guilty of fading too soon. Surely, though, these are things you work on? Surely, there is more upside than down that these players can offer you? By the time they did start to play regularly, it was clear that Sarri was playing them reluctantly and in response to fan power. Sadly, their seasons ended too soon to injury. I hope Sarri didn't feel vindicated.

And then there were the infuriating, zero-sum substitutions: Berkley on for Kovaacic, Kovacic on for Berkley; Jorginho played regardless, the world's best holding midfielder, N'Golo Kante, pushed out to the right of the diamond; Gonzalo Higuain played up front on a Sunday in spite of Olivier Giroud's Thursday night prowess; worse, still, Eden Hazard pushed into the False 9 position in spite of both Higuain and Giroud being available recognised centre forwards. Again, Sarri knew best, or at least professed to knowing best. At risk of sounding a tad mercenary, however, that's not what we fork out hundreds of pounds a season to watch. We want to see the best being the best at what they do. Perhaps if we'd seen fewer of the results like the 6-0 defeat by City or 4-0 away drubbing by Bournemouth, not to mention the niggly two-goal defeats at Liverpool and Everton respectively, attitudes may have been better. Actually, when you look at Chelsea's Premier League performance in totality this season, the results aren't all that bad: Won 21, Drawn 9, Lost 8, Goals for 63, Goals against 39, and 72 points in total. But then compare that with the gulf between Chelsea and Liverpool and City above them - goal differences of +67 for Liverpool and a final points total of 97, and +78 and 98 points for City.

All of which means next season is going to be a tough fight for Chelsea to get back on level terms with their more successful rivals this term. Which begs two questions: how will they fare without Sarri, to be confirmed any day now as the new boss at Juventus (following an "amicable" agreement with the Chelsea hierarchy to move on)? And how will they fare without Eden Hazard, surely to finally get his move to Real Madrid this month, one that most Chelsea fans, I would contest, are respectfully at peace with after seven seasons at the club.

To the first question, I'm sure Chelsea will do fine after Sarri, just as they've been fine following each of the last fifteen managers who've gone after relatively short tenures during the Roman Abramovich era. Of course, there is the almost certain likelihood that whomever takes over will have to contend with the FIFA transfer ban, but then if that means that the club relies on its own resources for a bit, and bloods in some of the myriad youth players scattered throughout the lands as loanees, then maybe the club will get to see what fan loyalty really is about. Sometimes crowd pleasing starts at home. The big question, however, is who gets to manage them, and here's where stomachs begin to cramp up. The appointment of Frank Lampard to run a squad containing homegrown youth would be very attractive to the romantic at heart. But just as no Chelsea fan - and I mean, no Chelsea fan - would ever want to see Gianfranco Zola take the top job, in case he screws up and sullies his legend status at the club, there's a similar squeamishness about Lamps taking on a historically risky job just a single season into his managerial career. No one will deny that Frank is one of the brightest players ever to have graced the game, and will have been applying himself as Derby County manager with customary maturity, but do we want to see one of the greatest players in the blue shirt chewed up and spat out by Chelsea so soon in his managerial career?

Picture: Twitter/Chelsea FC

And, then, Hazard. Resistance to hype might prevent the diminutive Belgian from being favourably compared to Lionel Messi and that ageing showboater Cristiano Ronaldo, but Hazard sometimes does defy the eyes. Sure, there have been plenty of games when he has been demonstrably below par, as if he gets to pick and choose when he turns it up to 11 and when he just ticks over, but just as it has been a privilege to have seen the aforementioned Zola play football, the same applies to Hazard. If he does move on - and who would begrudge him if he did at the age of 28 - we will have seen the sort of mercurial talent that, normally, only gets to play for European club royalty. So the next Chelsea manager will have the inconsiderable challenge of filling an unfillable void. 20-year-old American, Christian Pulisic, might well be that stopgap, though little, really, is known of him, apart from what can be gleaned from his unveiling at Chelsea, in which few believed that he was, actually, 20. Remarkable maturity off the pitch, so let's see what he offers on it.

Every new season brings hope, adventure and expectation, and even with Chelsea's challenges due to the two-window transfer ban (which, despite ongoing appeals, seems unlikely to be revoked) and yet another change of manager, the prospect of young players coming into the squad, and a few dead weeds disappearing, means that when that first August weekend of the new season comes around, there will be a wholesale sense of change at Stamford Bridge that hasn't been there for many an opening weekend. The coming days will, I suspect, be key to that. But perhaps, though, a little holiday from football might do us all some good.

Hazard warning

When I began my blogging career eight years ago I didn’t give much thought to what I’d write about. The first post just happened to be about football - because I was angry - but when I christened the blog What Would David Bowie Do?, most assumed it would have a musical connection. I now realise that, over the last few weeks, it has been exclusively about football. But, then, can you blame me when there have been such sumptuous pickings from the beautiful game to blog about?

Today, my friends, will be no different. Matters musical can and will wait. Because - and I know the World Cup confetti has barely been Hoovered up, but things move quickly - Chelsea burst back into my consciousness at the end of last week with, finally, the firing of Antonio Conte and...er...finally, the hiring of Maurizio Sarri. Sarri appeared yesterday in his first interview for Chelsea's in-house TV channel and gave an impressive, eloquent account of himself. Speaking in fluent English (a marked contrast to Conte at the start, although he worked hard to learn the language) Sarri set out his intent: "I think with one or two adjustments, we can try to play my football," he said, perhaps making reference to the entertaining style he employed at Napoli and which first drew Chelsea's attention to the former banker.

Quite what those adjustments will be remains to be seen, though the arrival of Italian midfielder Jorginho as part of the deal with Napoli that brought Sarri to Stamford Bridge, is surely only just the start. Juve's Daniele Rugani and Gonzalo Higuain are reportedly also on Sarri's shopping list, though both might be difficult to extract from the reigning Italian champions, even if they have just shelled out £105 million for Cristiano Ronaldo.

The bigger headache, however, for Sarri will be holding on to players, in particular, Eden Hazard, but also Thibaut Courtois, Willian and Gary Cahill (who, being over 30 and slipping behind Antonio Rudiger and, potentially, Rugani, is unlikely to get any more gametime under Sarri than he was getting from Conte). Willian grew increasingly frustrated last season - most notably in the FA Cup Final, when he was only brought off the bench in the 91st minute, having spent most of the game warming up on the touchline. Courtois, who has just one more season to run on his contract, has been hinting at a move back to Madrid for some time, largely due to his children still living there with their mother, Marta Domínguez, the goalkeeper's former partner.

But it is Hazard who poses the greatest challenge for Sarri and Chelsea. Having captained Belgium to third place in the World Cup, the club has given the mercurial midfielder three weeks off to recover - a generous amount of time and long enough to give plenty of thought as to what he might do next. At the weekend he hinted at what that could be, saying that "it might be time to discover something different" after six "wonderful years" at Chelsea. And, guess what? Ronaldo's move to Juve just created a vacancy on the left side of the attack at Real Madrid, the club Hazard referred to on Saturday as "my preferred destination". That may well be the case, but Madrid are apparently eyeing up either Neymar or Kylian Mbappe as first-choice targets.

For his part, Hazard is hardly agitating for a move. The affable Belgian has always been relaxed about his future (and the latest rumouring is nothing new). "It is not my decision, he told reporters on Saturday. "The club will decide. Now I just want to go on holidays and we will see what happens."

Nevertheless, now might be the time Hazard sees as perfect to fulfil his dream of winning the Champions League. He signed for Chelsea in June 2012, just after the club had won the European prize. With the club reduced to the Europa League next season, playing for the current European champions would be highly appealing. However, even if Madrid come in for him, Chelsea are expected to slap a whopping £200 million price tag on the Belgian, who still has two years to run on his current contract.

A further question is, can Chelsea afford to lose him? Hazard is, without doubt, the best player on their books. I would even argue that, on his day, he's the best player in the Premier League. That's an asset any club would be reluctant to give up. But having helped Chelsea to two Premier League titles, the FA Cup, League Cup and Europa League, at 27 the club has certainly had the best out of him, and could be tempted to cash in. Even if Madrid is unlikely to spend anything like what Chelsea want for Hazard, he would certainly not go cheaply, which would raise decent funds for some of the names on Sarri's list.

It would be a wrench to see the charismatic Belgian go, but maybe the time is right. Better now while he is relatively relaxed about both his relationship with Chelsea and his future, rather than when he is agitated and demotivated, as Diego Costa was when he was eventually released to Atlético Madrid. Under Conte last season, Hazard continued to demonstrate his worth, week in, week out, unlocking defences like no other and winning critical spot kicks, as he did in the FA Cup Final in May, an otherwise dire affair in which the only thing separating Chelsea and Manchester United was Hazard's penalty.

Sarri promises a fresh start and a new approach, which may be enriched by new signings that could also compensate for Hazard's potential departure. Jorginho - while no direct replacement - is certainly one of the most coveted creative midfielders in Europe (his signing was a major blow to Pep Guardiola, who'd earmarked him as a replacement for Yaya Touré at Manchester City). That said, Hazard could be a player whom Sarri would want to build his team around, even with the acquisition of his 'own' players.

Despite maintaining that his future will be up to Chelsea's to decide, much depends on the player himself. Chelsea fans are somewhat sanguine about Hazard's future. Knowing that nothing in football lasts forever, some could even be forgiven for thinking that it's amazing he's lasted as long as he has in West London, given all the comparisons to Messi and Ronaldo. "He is a player who has maturity and a lot of leadership," said his Belgium national team boss, Roberto Martinez in an interview with Spanish radio. "Hazard could carry a new project anywhere in the world. He is at the best moment of his career. He could fit in any team in the world." Over the next three weeks we will find out whether that team continues to be Chelsea or not.

As Leicester win the title, the search for Elvis goes on

The conventional wisdom is that the British don't value success, whereas Americans regard it as an attainment to be revered. We islanders apparently find it all a tad vulgar and would much prefer to wallow in failure. Why else would our favourite film be The Great Escape, the story of a brave but doomed POW breakout? And why else would the England football team's unofficial brass band play the film's theme music incessantly and in unwitting irony in an attempt to stir support during matches?

The same reasoning lies behind our tolerance of Eddie 'The Eagle' Edwards, he of the double-glazed spectacles, who truly believed he could fly and became Great Britain's ski jumping hopeful in the 1988 Winter Olympics. At the time (actually, since, too) Britain wasn't exactly a world-beating ski-jumping nation, and Edwards - no sporting failure, by the way - was automatically installed as the underdog. As is the British way, he was obviously unlikely to succeed but gave it it a damn good go. They've now made a movie out of him, too. No doubt the England brass band are learning its score in anticipation of this summer's European championships.

So, while Britain turns its nose up at the desire to be successful, and after a few spins on the pedestal will gleefully find a way to knock off anyone achieving it, we do love an underdog. At Wimbledon we cheer homegrown tennis stars in the face of minuscule chances of them making it to Week 2 (until, of course, Andy Murray comes along and wins it, instantly transmuting himself from "surly Scot" to the greatest Briton since Churchill, Elgar and Henry V). Nearly three-quarters of a century after World War 2 we still watch The Great Escape, The Battle Of Britain and even Dad's Army to remind us of when we were overwhelmingly the underdog. And when we beat nonsensical odds to come out of that period still alive, just.

So what, then, do we now make of Leicester City? Today they are the Barclays Premier League champions. Last season they were nearly relegated from the league itself. At Christmas 2014 they were rock bottom, having only been promoted from the Championship at the end of the previous season, ending a ten-year absence from the top flight. At Christmas 2015 they were on top, and yet at the start of the season bookies would have given you odds of 5000/1 on them actually winning the league. By contrast, you can't get better than 2000/1 for finding Elvis Presley alive.

If ever there was an example of the classic British underdog, Leicester City are it. But more than that. Their success in winning the Premier League with two games to spare is, without succumbing to hyperbole, one of the most remarkable achievements in football and even sporting history. It is hard not sound patronising when describing Leicester's success in such terms, but even their own fans deservedly and raucously celebrating outside the King Power Stadium last night, following Chelsea's tempestous 2-2 draw with Tottenham, were struggling to take it all in. "We're just a small city you've never heard of," said one on Sky News.

When the endearing Claudio Ranieri was appointed Leicester manager, replacing Nigel Pearson after a combustible end to the previous season, there were grave doubts. While he had certainly managed some of Europe's elite sides, including Chelsea, Fiorentina, Atlético Madrid, Juventus, Roma and Inter, it had been without any notable success. His previous appointment, as manager of the Greek national team, lasted barely four months. In his native Italy, Ranieri had endured plenty of critics: football writer Tommaso Pellizzari recently told the Financial Times’ Simon Kuper that Ranieri was “the perfect loser, with a capital L”, adding how “everyone in Italy thought he was very nice, polite, kind, but please never call him to my team”.

Gary Lineker, arguably Leicester’s highest profile supporter, even tweeted "Claudio Ranieri? Really?” on hearing of the Roman’s appointment to the Foxes, later being quoted on BreatheSport.com as saying: "Claudio Ranieri is clearly experienced, but this is an uninspired choice by Leicester. It's amazing how the same old names keep getting a go on the managerial merry-go-round." It’s a missive he now surely regrets, but it would be harsh to single him out entirely. At the beginning of the season numerous pundits had Leicester to be relegated this season, having narrowly missed it before. At the other end of the table, predictions were that this would be a straight back-to-back title for Chelsea, or that Arsenal would finally fulfil their promise. Few - if any - predicted that Spurs would come as close.

That Leicester have confounded the experts is a true testament to the mist of reality that hangs over the Premier League. It's been calculated that Manchester United have spent more on players in the two years that Louis van Gaal has been in charge than in Leicester's entire 132-year history. The gulf in class, they say, between the-now English champions and the usual suspects who "should" win it is enormous.

Jamie Vardy was working in a factory not so long ago, playing non-league football. He was even turned down by Sheffield Wednesday. Sheffield who? Exactly. And today he is the Football Writers' Association Player Of The Year, and there is even talk of a movie about him. Five years ago Riyad Mahrez was in the sixth tier of French football. Last month he was named the PFA's Player Of The Year.

Leicester should probably be named Team Of The Century. Their Premier League victory may have come at the expense of the oligopoly being dismally unable to mount a challenge this year, but they have led from the very beginning. Even allowing for the somewhat phoney war of the opening weeks of the season, Leicester have simply powered through, playing composed, counter-attacking football, with Vardy and Mahrez scoring goals that have been a pleasure to behold, fed by an endeavouring midfield, a sturdy defence and, in Kasper Schmeichel, a world-class goalkeeper to-be.

The more expensively-assembled elite will, when they carry out their season reviews, have to look at Leicester and think hard about how they did it, especially given the meagre funds the club has at its disposal (Leicester's starting line-up on the opening day of the season represented an investment of less than £16 million; by comparison, last summer Manchester City spent £49m on Raheem Sterling alone). However you look at it, this has been a remarkable season in the Premier League.

It’s not that Leicester have merely benefited from Manchesters United and City, Arsenal, Liverpool and Chelsea not being at the races - they have simply been better. With the exception of Tottenham – who have been largely excellent (words I, as a Chelsea fan, struggle to type) – Leicester have outclassed the so-called big-guns: United and City have been beset by their own misfortune – the existing manager in United’s case, the effect of announcing a new one in City’s; Arsenal promised big yet again, and faded by January yet again; Liverpool are still building under Jürgen Klopp, but as Sunday’s Swansea game demonstrated there’s still work to be done there; and Chelsea… Well let’s just look forward to a new season and a new manager, shall we?

Picture: Leicester Mercury

Hopefully they will all conclude that what Leicester have - and they are lacking - is simply the chemistry. And credit for that must go to Ranieri. Look back over the season - the pizza nights for his players, the quiet, dignified man in interviews, none of the histrionics or negativity of his principal rivals. Prior to Leicester, his managerial record wasn’t all bad. He took Sardinian side Cagliari from Italy’s Serie C1 to Serie A in successive seasons, introduced Gianfranco Zola at Napoli, won top flight promotion for Fiorentina plus the the Coppa Italia and Supercoppa Italiana, and took Valencia to Champions League qualification for the first time. After a disastrous spell at Atlético (a club in dire financial peril at the time) he joined Chelsea, building the foundations of the team that José Mourinho would eventually win successive Premier League titles with, as well as signing Frank Lampard and promoting John Terry to central defence. Sure, there were some eccentric performances before he was sacked by Roman Abramovich who bought the club in 2003, and at times the label ‘Tinkerman’ was well deserved. But Ranieri guided the club to its most promising seasons in decades, reaching a Champions League semi-final and knocking out Arsenal along the way. And when the ‘dead man walking’ was eventually fired, Chelsea were in second place in the Premier League.

That Ranieri should have returned to England to manage Leicester after journeying through Europe was seen as an opportunity to complete unfinished business. No one, though, not even the most glass-half-full Leicester fan, could have expected that to mean where the team have ended up. Not even Ranieri: "I never expected this when I arrived," he said in a statement last night. "I’m a pragmatic man, I just wanted to win match after match and help my players to improve week after week. Never did I think too much about where it would take us. The players have been fantastic. Their focus, their determination, their spirit has made this possible. Every game they fight for each other and I love to see this in my players. They deserve to be champions." And they do.

In today's papers, on television last night, in radio phone-ins and all over Twitter, the somewhat condescending phrase “against the odds” has been everywhere. Their Premier League title success, as unlikely as it has been, has not simply been a remake of Cool Runnings. Leicester may not have the wealth of the teams below them, but they're not paupers either. But their underdog status has not been about money, anyway. Their victory has been about a team that isn't one of the so-called "elite" winning it.

Ranieri’s side has shown a refreshing passion, unity and discipline that their rivals, save for Spurs, haven’t. They’ve soaked up the pressure. Some might even say they’ve played pure football. In Vardy they’ve had a player who has even given England fans something to think about as we head towards the Euros in France. In Mahrez, we’ve seen someone to create excitement every time he steps on the pedal. And in Wes Morgan, we’ve seen a true captain’s captain. Captain Morgan - yeah. But most of all, we have seen in Claudio Ranieri a dignified manager who, at 64, has finally achieved premium silverware, and on his terms, too.

It is a fairy tale, and why not? Are we so embittered and cynical in football that only an established order must prevail? Of course not. As I’ve written so many times before, football is an archly tribal sport, but it has been a long time – probably going back to Newcastle under Kevin Keegan – that an entire nation has united to will a team to victory. I can’t even remember the last time a team attracted so much interest from the foreign media before. Even the Americans can pronounce "Leicester" properly now. Feelgood story of the year, eh?

Now 96 families know they're not walking alone

In the 27 years and 11 days since the Hillsborough tragedy, we have frequently heard or read the refrain "no one should die because they went to a football match". But on the day that a jury has delivered justice to the families of the 96 who died in Sheffield, by declaring their deaths unlawful, we should also put football into some context.

In England on April 15, 1989, football was somewhat in the social doghouse. To be a fan was to have pariah status in some circles. English clubs and their supporters were in the midst of a five-year ban from European competition after hooliganism had reached its nadir at the Heysel Stadium in Brussels on May 29, 1985, when 39 Italian fans died and 600 were injured as a result of fighting between Liverpool and Juventus supporters. Two weeks prior to that ugly encounter, 56 people died and at least 265 were injured when fire swept through Bradford City's antiquated Valley Parade stadium.

But, with the Premier League and its Sky money not heralding a gentrification of English football's elite for another three years to come, Hillsborough ensured that the sport continued to be supported without the fanfare and wall-to-wall attention it gets today. Amongst metropolitan circles to declare interest or even an opinion on the game would result in looks at social occasions akin to announcing a penchant for bestiality with zoo animals.

Hillsborough darkened the sport's already dimmest days and, that the tragedy should have involved Liverpool fans again brought a further cruel twist to the reputation of the city and the club. On the day of the disaster more than 24,000 supporters travelled from Merseyside for the FA Cup semi-final between the Reds and Nottingham Forest at Hillsborough, Sheffield Wednesday's ground. They had been assigned to the North and West stands, but in the build-up, a large number of Liverpool fans were already crowding before the turnstiles of the Leppings Lane end of the ground. To relieve the pressure, an exit gate - C - was opened a few minutes before the scheduled kick-off time, but all this did was filter 2,000 spectators into fenced-in pens that were already bulging, resulting in a severe crush...and the deaths of 96 people. The youngest was just 10, the oldest, 67. Many had died horribly from compression asphyxia, an agonizing death (essentially how a boa constrictor kills its prey).

In the aftermath, blame was placed squarely on the behaviour of the fans themselves. As with Heysel, and indeed all the other shameful moments of English football support, it was assumed that this was a terrible event with the sport's neanderthal element at its root. This was seized upon by the police and the establishment, who appeared in collusion to besmirch the Liverpool supporters with lies to protect their own standing. Sir Bernard Ingham, then Margaret Thatcher’s press secretary, accused the fans of being "tanked up yobs". Today, he refused to apologise for the slur. The Sun newspaper compounded things by publishing lurid claims about the fans, rendering the paper persona non grata to this day on Merseyside.

Despite this, the families of the 96 men, women and children have fought a tireless battle in the intervening years to win back the reputations of their loved ones and, moreover, for the police who were supposedly in control of Hillsborough to be brought to account for their apparent negligence. Not all police officers at Hillsborough that day were culpable: most joined the effort to get victims to safety, with advertising hoardings famously used as makeshift stretchers. But the evidence and statements that have appeared throughout the inquest, one of the longest in British legal history, have made for grim testament of the conduct of the senior commanders on duty at Hillsborough and even of the culture within the South Yorkshire police authority in a decade that also saw it accused of heavy-handed tactics during the 1984 miners' strike.

Today, after hearing from more than 500 witnesses, reading 4,000 pages of documents. watching countless hours of video evidence and almost three months of deliberation, a jury has found the police commander at Hillsborough on the day, Chief Superintendant David Duckenfield "responsible for manslaughter by gross negligence". During the inquest, Duckenfield’s barrister, John Beggs QC, had pushed the prevailing police view of Liverpool fans being drunk and uncompliant with police instructions as the crush worsened at the Leppings Lane End. Survivors countered this, giving evidence that there hadn't any misbehaviour and that a lack of coherent police planning had led to the chaos that ensued. Overall, the jury concluded a catalogue of errors - a lack of police planning, control and communication, the inadequacies of the stadium itself, delays in the emergency response, poor signage and information on match tickets, and even a lack of response by Sheffield Wednesday officials in delaying kick-off of the cup tie. Of 14 questions the jury was asked to consider, all but one received a 'yes' - the one  'no' being in response to a question about whether the supporters' behaviour "caused or contributed to the dangerous situation at the Leppings Lane turnstiles".

There will, no doubt, be renewed vigour to bring those responsible to account for their negligence. Perhaps the police on duty on April 15, 1989 - all no doubt now enjoying comfortable retirement, generous pensions and preferred parking at the local golf club - will be pursued with the same zeal that miscreant celebrities have been by Operation Yewtree. For the record, the current chief constable of South Yorkshire Police, David Crompton, said the force "unequivocally" accepted the findings, and admitted that it had "failed the victims and failed their families".

Personally, I see no benefit in a witchhunt. The families, hopefully can now seek closure and vindication, rather than the prolonged pain of further legal proceedings. The one frustration is that they've had to endure 27 years of agony that could have been avoided a long time ago by a simple admission of failure. If there is a legacy of Hillsborough - and wisdom after the event - our sports stadia and the organisation around football matches improved beyond all recognition. Lord Justice Taylor's report saw to that, heralding in more expensive but safer all-seat venues, with changes to matchday policing at grounds. In the process, it also brought about a change in the clientele profile.

But for me the most important outcome of today's verdict is the full exoneration of Liverpool fans. Football has had a lot to answer for, and even today, it would be naive in the extreme to think that hooliganism has gone away. I, like the fans of most teams remain party to the tribalism that, to some extent, drives the game. As I am with Manchester United, Spurs and Arsenal, I'm programmed to dislike Liverpool out of a decades-long on-the-pitch rivalry. But no amount of dislike could wish for the events of 27 years ago. None.

No amount of retroactive investigation and, potentially, arrests will bring back the 96, either. All we can hope is that the reputations of those fans and, indeed, the city of Liverpool have been restored by the verdict, and the victims' families can, 27 years on, finally enjoy peace and dignity.

Behind blue eyes - Ciao Antonio, come stai?

The last time anything took as long as the appointment, confirmed today, of Antonio Conte as Chelsea's new manager was, possibly, the tectonic movement that formed the continents.

For almost as long as there has been the vacancy at Stamford Bridge, following José Mourinho's sacking in December, the 46-year-old with frankly scarily ice-blue eyes has been in the frame to become Roman Abramovich's next club manager, although unrealistically Pep Guardiola and Diego Simeone were higher up the short-list.

Of course, Conte still has the trifling job of managing Italy's progress through the European Championships this summer before he takes over at Chelsea, but when he does he will have his work cut out and then some. Even with his pedigree - 400 midfield appearances for Juventus, winning five Serie A titles and the Champions League with them, and then winning the domestic title for Juve in his first season as manager of the Bianconeri (and two more Scudetti in each season thereafter) - the task of rewiring Chelsea to be both a Premier League and a European contender once more will be huge.

I say "rewire" as the job in hand isn't necessarily about reconstruction. Many, if not most, Chelsea fans will say that now is the chance to rebuild the club around the exciting youth prospects that exist, including those in the trophy-gathering Under-18 and Under-21 teams, as well as those expensively cast out on loan in Europe, their futures uncertain. As Tottenham's Mauricio Pochettino and even - gasp! - Louis van Gaal have shown, young prospects can convert hunger and prospect into excitement and results.

Quite why Chelsea have acquired so many young players and, under successive managers including Mourinho and even 'Uncle' Guus Hiddink, not played them at all or very little, has been baffling. Unless the club academy responsible for their development, or the executives responsible for signing them, simply haven't delivered the goods, in which case they should be sacked at the earliest opportunity.

The second scenario is that Conte may just want to hang on to the players that have been part of this, Chelsea's worst season, relatively speaking, in many years. Athletico Madrid want Diego Costa to return, and the Brazillian-turned-Spaniard's easily combustible nature has suggested that he hasn't settled in London. Conte, though, apparently sees him as the ideal spearhead, and there's no doubt that when Costa is focused on simply being the best goal hanger on the pitch, he can still do a fearful job for Chelsea.

And then Eden Hazard. Player of the season one minute, embarassing refusenik the next. Conte is said to have told people that he will wait until he's fully on board at Chelsea before speaking to the mercurial Belgian, but if body language counts as 90% of all communication, Hazard is already on his way to Paris or Real Madrid, his dream destination. It would be a supreme loss of talent - Chelsea were right to sign him up to an extremely lucrative deal - but when the head's gone, the body follows soon after, and that seems to have been the case this season, from the moment he scuffed a keeper-to-beat opportunity against Petr Čech in the Community Shield at Wembley, and when he went down injured the following week at Stamford Bridge, sparking the whole Mourinho-Carneiro hoo-ha. His season has been unbelievably poor ever since.

The other player Conte should give significant thought to ejecting is Thibault Courtois. He was the much-exalted successor to Čech, who kept him out on loan at Athletico because the Czech stopper was - and still is - that good. Like his fellow Belgian, though, Courtois' head seems to have been turned by interest from elsewhere. But the truth is that he hasn't consistently demonstrated that he is as good as Čech was, if ever, if I was to be brutal. Indeed Asmir Begovic, who covered for Courtois in the early weeks of this season, showed that he was equally up to the task. Having two top-quality No.1s is never ideal, from a player management point of view, but Begovic has maintained his dignity and fan respect since Courtois returned from injury before Christmas. Perhaps Chelsea could cash in...and pick up a bargain like Southampton's Fraser Forster as a result?

Conte will have other issues to consider: one of the most pressing is in central defence. John Terry is unlikely to receive a new playing-only contract, but could he be persuaded to stay on in a player-coach capacity? Some believe that Chelsea should cut their losses altogether with Terry, and adopt a new-coach, new-era approach, and there is some credence to this. Traditionalists, though, will see that keeping Terry and his natural leadership around could be valuable for a young squad looking for icons - of which he is about the only one left - at the club. One thing is certain, Conte keeping Terry would certainly not be a simple issue of age. "There is no young and old, only victory or failure," he told Tuttosport last year, sounding an awful lot like Robert Duvall's Colonel Kilgore in Apocalypse Now.

But what, too, of Gary Cahill - who plays worse the less Terry appears - and the criminally inconsistent Oscar. And Matic - who has stubbornly failed to regain his 2014-15 form - and Loic Remy, who has been pushed so far out to the fringes that it would be best for all concerned for him to move on.

That would leave Conte with the likes of Willian - the only real candidate for player of the season this term and also a player who would definitely fit the Conte mould - plus Branislav Ivanovic (himself no spring chicken), the promising Betrand Traore, Kenedy, Kurt Zuma when fit, the dependable Cesar Azpilicueta, young American Matt Miazga, Cesc Fabregas as a new permanent captain, and the still-to-be-polished diamond that is Ruben Loftus-Cheek. With the wealth of talent out on loan, such as Nathan Ake, Marco van Ginkel, Nathan Chalobah, Dominic Solanke and Isiah Brown, plus a few marquee signings (forget Pogba, but why not Cavani?), and Conte has the potential for a young, lively and - most important of all - unpredictable team.

One of Mourinho's failings was his lack of variety. Once opposing teams figured out how to shut down Hazard or crowd out Costa they exploited Chelsea's predictability, who failed to have a plan B ready. Thus there was little squad rotation, little change from 4-3-3 and little chance of fringe and youth players getting a chance, all of which surely added to the team's mental and physical collapse and their season's success being measured only by how they avoided relegation.

Not that Chelsea's still-bruised and battered stars can expect any respite from Conte: by reputation he is an unrelenting taskmaster who built his own playing career on hard graft and has come to expect the same of anyone playing for him. Perhaps that might prove too much for some at the Bridge, though Chelsea won't want to see a repetition of this season's abject collapse until Hiddink's brand of Dutch lassez-faire restored confidence. And the results have clearly followed.

Life under Conte will not necessarily be any more comfortable than they were under Mourinho. In his autobiography, former Juve star Andrea Pirlo recalls how Conte had a volcanic temper, describing dressing rooms filled with flying water bottles and even stronger invective when things weren't going well: "When he talks, his words assault you," Pirlo describes his former coach poetically. "They crash through your mind, often quite violently, and settle deep within."

Regardless of how the azzuri do in France this summer, it's clear that Antonio Conte will join Chelsea with a history of success for a manager who is still only in his mid-40s. Even with some residual reputational baggage hanging over him from the ten-month ban he received during his time as coach of Siena (he was charged with failing to report a match-fixing attempt - which he strenously denied), the Premier League is a vastly different place to Serie A. That may not be a concern to Conte from a physical point of view, but it will inevitably inform his tactical outlook, and obviously the choice of players he might ask Marina Granovskaia and Michael Emenalo to deliver (though he shouldn't hold his breath if the experience - and latterly barely concealed frustration - of Mourinho last summer is anything to go by).

Ultimately it will be Roman Abramovich himself who will have to accept that no matter Conte's history, the 2016-17 season will be a relatively fallow one, especially without any European involvement (unless a Europa League comes unexpectedly good in the next month). Abramovich might, to some degree, shoulder some blame for Chelsea's state this season (though given his remarkable benevolence and genuine enthusiasm - take note, R. Lerner... - it would be hard to go further than that), as he appointed Granovskaia and Emenalo to their posts as, respectively, executive in charge of player acquisitions and technical director. These appointments have led to the ridiculous state of affairs of more than 30 players out on loan and the abysmal transfer deadline day grab of soon-to-be-forgotten players last September.

Conte will have to deal with that haphazard mechanism above and aside him. He might ask for Pogba, just as Mourinho did, but it will be a wonder if such a player can be lured to a club which is hardly one of Europe's giants (even if it thinks it is) and most probably will only be focused next season on domestic honours.

One thing, however, is certain about Conte joining Chelsea: the club has benefitted immensely from its recent history of Italians. Even now I can't believe that the Chelsea of 1996 was able to sign the gentlemanly Luca Vialli, soon after he lifted the European Cup as Juventus captain; and I still revel in every twist and turn that I saw Gianfranco Zola put in during his mesmerising spell at the club.

Italy and everything Italian suddenly became cool again in London (as it had been in the Mod era of the 60s). Not that long after Italia 90, the arrivals of these Italians, and those who'd played in Italy like Ruud Gullitt, may have come towards the end of their playing carreers, but to this Chelsea fan and committed Italianophile, they marked the end of a period of moribundity at the Bridge. All of a sudden, a club that had history but little to show for it, had panache and style, on the pitch and off. Even Roberto di Matteo's restaurant, La Perla, was an exquisite dining experience.

Conte will become the fifth Italian to manage Chelsea, and the sixth to have managed in Italy, if you include Mourinho's spell at Inter. The expectation for success will come from Abramovich alone: his acquisition of Chelsea in 2003 was, it is believed, in order to create an English version of AC Milan, complete with Andrei Schevchenko and a rumoured attempt then to lure Carlo Ancelotti away from the San Siro. That he eventually did, with the arch-eyebrowed one winning the Premier League title, the FA Cup and the Community Shield in his first season in charge, 2009-2010. Vialli became player-manager, winning the FA Cup, League Cup, UEFA Cup Winners Cup and UEFA Super Cup, while di Matteo 'just' won the Champions League. And Claudio Ranieri? I believe he is now at a club called Leicester City.

Benvenuti, Antonio, e buona fortuna.