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FC Basel’s French striker Giovanni Sio (3-L) during training for the forthcoming UEFA Champions League, group E match against Chelsea at Stamford Bridge, London, England on September 17, 2013.
Last season was a very up and down season for Chelsea FC. They became the first ever champions to be eliminated from the group stages of the Champions League and then somewhat redeemed their wounded pride by going on to win the Europa League.
Now, they are back in the Champions League, and they face a familiar opponent in FC Basel – the Swiss champions.
FC Basel might be remembered by most EPL followers as the team that beat and knocked out Manchester United 2 years ago from the Champions League.
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Although they did not progress much further, they lost out their best player in Xherdan Shaqiri to Bayern Munich.
Last time around, they beat Tottenham Hotspur in the quarter-finals of the Europa League and once again lost one of their best players in Aleksandar Dragovic to Dynamo Kiev while Alexander Frei also retired along the way.
Basel were never a great side, but they were and still are, a good team. It helps that most of their players have been playing together for some time now and have developed a good understanding between them.
Despite all this, Basel are a significantly weakened team now than they were 2 years back, and Chelsea should be disappointed with anything other than a win tonight at Stamford Bridge.
Chelsea themselves on the other hand, are a much better team than when they last met Basel in the semi finals of the Europa League.
Petr Cech is as good as always, John Terry seems to have pulled himself out of the rut he seemed to be in last year, and Chelsea have added to their attacking options with Willian and Eto’o coming in and Kevin DeBryune returning from Germany.
The most important thing though, is that they have their ‘beloved’ Jose Mourinho back at the helm of the club, and having one the world’s best managers managing a very young and talented team will be very reassuring.
Team News:
FC Basel: With all the players that Basel have lost in the past 2 seasons, not much can be said about how they might line up against the English giants.
However, summer signing Matias Delgado, returning to the club after 6 years, should be expected to start, while Serey Die and Mohamed Elneny will both miss the tie with injury.
Chelsea FC: Chelsea have recently saw the return of both David Luiz and Juan Mata, which means none of their senior players will be unavailable.
That being said, Jose Mourinho has already confirmed that both Frank Lampard and Oscar will start tonight which probably means that Mata will start on the bench.
Basel may not be the easiest team to face in the Champions League, but Chelsea will definitely be looking for nothing less than 3 points to open their Champions League campaign in front of the Stamford Bridge faithful.
