I have been waiting for another bone head coach firing for a little while to write this article, and today’s might be the biggest! Chelsea FC coach Roberto Di Matteo was fired after the team’s terrible showing against Juventus in Turin yesterday during a champions league group stage match that resulted in a Juve 3-0 victory. It was also following a record of 3 losses and 2 draws in its last 5 meetings combining Champions League and EPL.
Media talked about a locker room blow-up after the weekend loss to West Brom involving players and staff, in which the players still said they still completely backed Di Matteo and insisted they still had faith. This should make sense, as Di Matteo took over last season from a struggling side with Andrea Villas-Boas and lead the Blues to their first ever Champions League crowning in May of 2012.
Di Matteo’s record with Chelsea after 42 matches was 24 wins 9 losses and 9 draws, which is impressive, but we all know his boss Roman Abromovich has his managers on a tight leash, and expects each one to be Jose Mourinho, for whom he had much of his success with in previous years.
My thoughts: When Mourinho had Chelsea they were a stacked squad and won a couple Premier League titles but couldn’t reach glory in Champions League, which Abromovich wanted most. Di Matteo came in and helped take this team to the most prestigious trophy in club football and now he gets axed so quickly. I think its a huge mistake! I hate how in professional sports team always want to turn to the coach when players aren’t performing at their best. I have always felt that a team needs to give a coach time to introduce his style of play to his players. I find this happens the most in the NFL where a coach is given one season and is out the door very often. Do you know Giants coach Tom Coughlin only 2 years after winning the Super Bowl almost got fired because his team finished 3rd in their division? Well what a mistake that would have been. How could they even discuss it so short after winning the biggest price in America? Well, 2 years later he won the Super Bowl again! Hopefully you can see how that highlights how I feel about this firing.
When you change a coach it makes an entire team change something they worked on for an entire year, and are back at square one. I believe in giving a coach three full seasons to complete a cycle. If he can’t get the team winning with his strategies then its time for change. However, if I had a coach like Di Matteo walk in and win a Champions League, I would be more concerned of axing some players and asking Di Matteo himself what players he felt would help out his strategies to get my team back to winning trophies! When you have winning Coaches like Coughlin and Di Matteo, don’t change them!! Work with them!
