Brunei Chelsea Fan Blogsite: Chelsea Vs Porto FC Match Review

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CHELSEA VS PORTO FC

Europe's premier club competition is back, as Chelsea begin their march towards the one title they have not yet laid their hands on

Chelsea first opponent are a side who have won it twice. FC Porto quite sensationally clinched the trophy in the 2003-04 season, when our boys crashed out in the semi-finals to AS Monaco. The season after that Jose Mourinho left the Portuguese club to take charge at the Bridge, and although he went on to win back to back league titles, failed to bring European success to West London, as did the three people who succeeded him in the hot seat.

And so it all begins again, and this time in our relentless attempt to go the distance, we've got another Champions League winning coach, Carlo Ancelotti. He has overseen a fantastic start in the Premiership, where Chelsea lead the standings having won all five games so far, and now he will try to keep the momentum going against Porto.

Although we did not meet Porto in that 2003-04 season, we faced them twice since. Three seasons back we needed Michael Ballack to take us past them in the round of 16 stage, and in the 2004-05 season, where they were ofcorse the defending champions, we met them once again in the group stage. In those four meetings, we've won two games, drawn one and lost one. Both those wins however were at the Bridge.

Our form going into this game is as mentioned above, fantastic. 100% record in the league, top of the table, life could not be any sweeter. But we had to wait till the 94th minute to get the three points against Stoke City in the weekend, and if Porto employ the same tactics as Stoke, then it might again become difficult for us. But I dont think any team would want to play like that, and am pretty sure Porto wont.

We wont have the services of Didier Drogba and Jose Bosingwa though, both suspended from last season. Deco, Alex, Paulo Ferreira, Joe Cole and Yuri Zhirkov are all out with injuries, and as a result Carlo has had to name three youngsters in the squad in Sam Hutchinson, Jeffrey Bruma and Fabio Borini. Don't think it will reach a point where we will actually have to play them, but still its a great opportunity for them to get a taste of this massive competition.

For Porto, they will hope to progress to the quarter finals after they were edged out 3-2 by Manchester United last season. Currently they are unbeaten in their first four domestic matches of the season and have no major injury problems after welcoming back Cristian Rodriguez into the side.