After just over two years as manager of Chelsea FC, Antonio Conte has been officially fired from the English club and is to be replaced by former Napoli FC coach Maurizio Sarri. Conte now joins Carlo Ancelotti (who'll actually replace Sarri at Napoli), Claudio Ranieri and Roberto Di Matteo as the fourth Italian manager at Chelsea to be, how do you say, relieved of his duties.
The World Cup has less than two weeks left, and I’m just about ready to curl up in a ball and cry in the corner for the next four years until Qatar 2022 rolls around. But alas, noone can stay away from the sport for that long. After the World Cup ends (sad, I know), the attention then becomes on the club scene again, particularly the International Champions Cup schedule.
European teams travel all over the globe for some preseason training camps and friendlies. The biggest set of friendlies, however, often happens in the United States.
David Luiz isn’t going to the World Cup, the Chelsea defender left off Tite’s World Cup squad. But that isn’t stopping the Brazilian from enjoying his offseason this summer, making a few friends along the way.
Chelsea and Manchester United battled in the FA Cup final in the second-most pompous event in England on Saturday. For both clubs, it was the culmination of a season fans of neither club will remember fondly.
While Chelsea won 1-0, it’s tough to determine which club had the worse season.
A vintage N'Golo Kante tackle prevented the world's most feared counterattack from delivering. Liverpool's triumverate of Mo Salah, Sadio Mane and Roberto Firmino has been devastating on the counter all season, and it looked as if they would break through first on Sunday with Sadio Mane charging at a retreating Gary Cahill.
Then N'Golo Kante tracked back and snuffed out the attack.
Make no mistake, Chelsea’s Premier League title defense has been nothing short of a disaster. In fact, their season as a whole could be summed up as outrageously underwhelming on all levels. They sit in fifth place and face an extremely difficult task in trying to catch London rivals Tottenham in fourth.
Spurs are five points ahead and there are only three games left to play this season. Also, bigger foundational problems loom for Chelsea in the offseason — problems that no doubt contributed to the malaise and poor form throughout the campaign.