Chelsea vs. Gent : 3 October 2024
I love Thursday Night Football.
I always have.
For those of us that live miles away from Stamford Bridge, travelling to and from games can be tiresome affairs, especially those that take place during the week. But I always love the fact that no matter how late games finish on Thursday nights – shall we talk about extra-time and penalties that might extend the night even further, shall I mention the penalties against Eintracht Frankfurt in 2019? – there is the lovely knowledge that I only have to struggle with work on Friday, for one day only. Then, the glorious respite of the weekend, especially since there are no games on Saturdays after European games these days.
Contrast this with a Monday night league game, and the sure knowledge that my sleeping patterns won’t recover for a few days. On a personal level, Monday night games are just horrible.
On this particular Thursday night, Chelsea were to embark on a new European journey, but it wasn’t one that I was completely happy with. Not only were we to take part in the fourth edition of UEFA’s newest baby the “Conference League”, but this was to be the first season that all UEFA competitions were to take the form of a “league” format in the autumn period.
The common view among football fanciers was that this was all an attempt to see off the continued rumours about certain European heavyweights – “Super Clubs”, their words not mine – needing a Super League for them to guarantee huge revenue streams. However, I haven’t met a single football supporter who is in favour of this new format. I know we are often seen as misty-eyed sentimental traditionalists, but the old system seemed to be a decent way to approach pan-European competitions.
The three UEFA competitions are basically three divisions of thirty-two teams.
More. More. More.
Before I continue with the events of this particular Thursday night, a quick mention of a Saturday in 1984 in my retrospective from forty years ago.
On Saturday 28 September 1984, Chelsea were at home to Leicester City in the old First Division. I was newly-arrived in Stoke and had survived “Freshers’ Week”. Originally, my first visit to Stamford Bridge was going to be the Watford match on 13 October, but as I walked past Stoke train station late on the Friday night, I decided there and then to get up early on the Saturday and get myself down to Stamford Bridge. I had attended the “Freshers Ball” that night – the main band was H2O, hit song “I Dream To Sleep” – but a planned liaison with Gill, an Everton fan, never materialised and so I needed to cheer myself up.
A Saturday in London with Chelsea was a quick and easy remedy.
This trip was a new experience for me, but the journey would be repeated on many occasions over the next three seasons. I was happily surprised that the fare was just £8. This felt knew and exciting. The route took me through Tamworth, Rugby, Milton Keynes and Watford. I made my way across London from Euston – “spotted a load of casuals, probably Arsenal going to Coventry” – to Stamford Bridge and took my position alongside new mates Alan, Mark and Leggo. I didn’t take my camera to this game, but I remember a nasty green away kit being worn by Leicester City. Chelsea easily won 3-0 with two goals from Kerry Dixon and one from Pat Nevin. The gate was just 18,521. I caught the 6.10pm train back to Stoke from Euston and got back to Stoke at 8.30pm, this time via Birmingham and Wolverhampton.
A new pattern to my football life had emerged.
Fast forward to 2024 and just PD and travelled up from the west of England for this game. After I demolished a pizza on the North End Road I joined up with him at “Simmons” just after 6pm. We were joined by Rob from Hersham, Luke from Ruislip and Andy from Los Angeles, who was en route to Munich for the Oktoberfest.
There was time to reminisce about Munich in 2012 – I kipped in Andy’s hotel room for a few hours after that most momentous of Saturday nights – but we also chatted a little about this new UEFA competition. I must admit that it was derided when it first started in 2021 – “a ridiculous competition for also-rans” – and even more so after West Ham won it in 2023, and ludicrously declared themselves “Champions of Europe” for a while, without the merest hint of irony, but the view of us Chelsea fans back in May when United won the FA Cup, thus pushing into this competition, was to embrace it, to enjoy some foreign travel again and to bloody well win it.
Wroclaw here we come? Hopefully.
With Andy in town there was also talk of the FIFA World Club Cup competition which is set to take place in twelve stadia in the US in June and July next summer. I am keen to go, as is my mate Glenn; it would be my twentieth visit to the US and it would celebrate my sixtieth birthday – a nice present to myself, no?
The strong rumour was that all games would be held on the East Coast, to satisfy European TV audiences and to keep travel, both by players and supporters, to a minimum. Alas, last week, the full list of venues was announced and only eight venues could really be classed as East Coast. In addition to games in New Jersey, Pennsylvania, DC, North Carolina, Georgia and Florida, there are also games in Tennessee, Ohio, Washington and California.
I just hope that FIFA does the right thing and keeps each of the first stage groups to as tight a geographical area as possible. As an example, I would be more than happy with three games in New Jersey, Pennsylvania and DC, or Tennessee, North Carolina and Georgia. At a push, three games in Florida, but God help us all in those stratospheric temperatures.
But I am not confident. There is no doubt that FIFA will want to ensure that fans all over the US will get a chance to see as many teams as possible, so I fully expect a taxing and expensive three-game set that might even see us play in Seattle, then Orlando, then Los Angeles. In such circumstances, I might just go for two games rather than all three.
The two West Coast venues, it seems, have been included for the benefit of the US’ sole team, thus far, from Seattle, who have been promised three home games, which seems unfair. Why should they be given home advantage? Well, it’s not too hard to work out.
Thirty of the thirty-two teams have qualified through debatable selection criteria and are awaiting the final two competitors. I see that the 2024 Coppa Libertadores winner is one of the final two places up for grabs along with a second US team. The draw is in December. Glenn and I will be on tenterhooks awaiting news.
There are some cracking teams from South America lined-up to attend; Chelsea vs. Boca Juniors or Chelsea vs. Fluminense, and Thiago Silva, anyone?
Of course, many are mocking this expanded competition and I can understand why. Extra games for an already-exhausted set of players and the risk of injury, plus talk of a money grab by FIFA and all of its murky corporate partners.
More football. More games. More sponsors. More TV. More money. More everything.
More. More More.
Back in my youth, this competition was a plain and simple one; European Cup Winner vs. Coppa Libertadores winner, one match in Tokyo, and that was that. It was then expanded to eight teams when it was held in Brazil in 2000. It then didn’t take place again until 2005, and since then has been held in Japan, the Arabian Peninsula and Morocco. Bizarrely, and I cannot understand this, there is still going to be an annual FIFA Intercontinental Cup held annually too.
More. More. More.
When will it stop?
I had seen a few Gent fans, dressed in blue and white, pottering down the North End Road earlier, and we saw more on the walk to the ground. I was inside at about 7.30pm ahead of the 8pm kick-off. We had seen the team in the pub. It was a completely different team that had played so well against Brighton on Saturday.
Jorgensen.
Disasi – Badiashile – Tosin – Veiga
Casadei – Dewsbury-Hall
Neto – Felix – Mudryk
Nkunku
A B Team? Yes, evidently so, and a pretty decent one, we hoped.
The lights soon dimmed and the players appeared. Whereas UEFA has chosen blue as the brand colour of the Champions League and red as the colour of the Europa league, it seems that green is the chosen colour of the Europa Conference. A green and black banner was waved on the centre-circle as the players lined up. The three-thousand fans held their scarves aloft.
The game began.
I spoke to Al about Eidur Dudjohnsen’s son, Andri, who was leading the Gent line.
I also spoke to Al about the possibility of Christopher Nkunku’s blue balloons making an appearance, and we wondered if I could shoehorn the phrase “balloons and Walloons” into this match report.
Soon into the game, it seemed that the entire Gent support was engaged in their version of “the bouncy” and it looked an impressive sight. Their support didn’t seem to have an “ultra” element, but just a noisy support with replica shirts and scarves, and a desire to sing.
Ten minutes in, it was all us. We had enjoyed a couple of early efforts as Al and I caught up with a few things; I had not seen him for a while.
On twelve minutes, Mykailo Mudryk was able to choose his moment in front of Parkyville and dolloped a long cross onto the head of the on-rushing Renato Veiga who finished with aplomb, heading down and past the Gent ‘keeper.
Chelsea 1 Gent 0.
Fifteen minutes in, it was all us.
“Have they even touched the ball in our half yet?”
There was a delightful flick from Joao Felix, in the Cole Palmer “creator” spot, but Nkunku stumbled as he tried to reach the ball.
A Pedro Neto run was captured on film – snap, snap, snap, snap – but the resultant shot from Keirnan Dewsbury-Hall was snatched, and my photo was blurred, so it didn’t make the cut.
We dominated still, but it was all a bit laboured. On the half-hour, Gent enjoyed a rare attack and an effort from the Archie Brown, an English export flourishing in Europe. Gent then had a tidy little spell. During one attack, I was fuming that two attackers were let free on our right.
The boy Gudjohnsen shot at goal from an angle after a neat move but it flashed over.
Our play became laboured. I toyed with the notion of this modern type of football – passing to oblivion, waiting for a chink in the deep-lying defence’s armour – being dropped into our football-going experience of twenty-five years ago. I suspect that it would have been booed relentlessly.
But progress is progress, eh?
It became a time for reflection. This actually didn’t seem much like a European game at all. The days of two-legged knock-out ties in the autumn – God, how exciting was Zizkov at home in 1994? – are long gone, but even the closeness of a four-team group of recent times, with home-and-away games, little histories being made, little rivalries developing, back stories, duels, seemed a darned sight better than this. The 2024 version of a European tie lacked intensity and drama and the competition, at least this huge first phase, seemed fuzzy and bloated.
More. More. More.
We felt that this whole first phase lacked a focus, a goal, a point. We were, after all, playing six apparently random teams, and in the biggest division, thirty-two teams, of all time. Both Al and I were struggling with the concept if it all. We kept referring to “our group” but of course there was no group, no group at all. The only common thing linking our six opponents was that two of them have a shamrock on their badge. How soon would this damned league table make any sense at all? Was the common denominator now to simply win as many games as possible? In closed groups, teams could play the system and budget for away draws against teams on the premise of beating them at home. Yet in this competition, there seemed to be no similar strategy.
In a nutshell, there would be no return leg in Gent.
Oh boy.
The “randomness” of the fixtures ate away at me too. One team could get top-ranking teams in each of the six pots, whereas another team could get drawn against low-ranking teams in each of the pots.
That would be a large discrepancy, no?
It just seemed wrong.
The atmosphere around me seemed a little quiet after a noisy start to the game.
Ho hum.
At the end of the half-time break, I disappeared to turn my bike around. While otherwise occupied, I heard a roar.
“Bloody hell, there was only one team on the pitch when I left my seat.”
Neto had blasted one in from close range apparently.
Chelsea 2 Gent 0.
Sadly, on fifty minutes, after a Gent corner, Gudjohnsen’s cross was flung into our box. There were five Chelsea defenders protecting the near post. Sadly, the unmarked Tsuyoshi Watanabe, along with four other Gent players, were at the rear post. He headed into Filip Jorgensen’s net. There were groans. It was a very sloppy goal to concede.
Chelsea 2 Gent 1.
With that, the away fans turned the away section into a Barry Manilow concert by turning on their phone torches. Memories of Napoli in 2012.
“That is embarrassing. That is embarrassing” sang the Matthew Harding.
The game became much more of a spectacle in the second-half, and the Stamford Bridge crowd became noisier.
On sixty-three minutes, the ball was played in from down below us and after the ball was kept alive, it eventually rolled out to Nkunku who smacked it home.
Chelsea 3 Gent 1.
He raced towards me, and was joined by his team mates.
Smiles all around.
He reached into his sock, I think, for the blue balloon and if only Gent was in the southern part of Belgium and not in the Flemish-speaking part, I could have used a geographically precise pun.
Instead, the home areas of Stamford Bridge decided to have a laugh en masse. Out came the mobile phones, out came the torches.
A nice giggle.
This was followed by a booming “CAREFREE.”
That’s more like it.
On seventy minutes, the light-footed Felix played in Nkunku, but a sliding tackle robbed him of a shot. The ball rolled nicely to Dewsbury-Hall, who slammed it in.
Chelsea 4 Gent 1.
A slide into our corner and smiles-aplenty from Dewsbury-Hall.
Time for some substitutions on eighty minutes.
Tyrique George for Neto.
Marc Guiu for Nkunku.
Axel Disasi ended up in the net after both he and Benoit Badiashile could not quite connect from a cross from Neto.
In the last few moments of the game, Gent were given far too much space down our left and the ball was easily played in for Omri Gandelman to smack home.
Chelsea 4 Gent 2.
By this time, orange jacketed stewards had been crowded around the gap between the home and away fans in the Shed Lower. What exactly was going on down there?
There was one last chance for Gent, but the toe-poke from outside the box flew over.
I thought to myself “you’re no Ronaldinho, mate.”
It had been, I think, an odd game, for more than one reason.
I met PD back at the car and I made good time on the drive west. I made it home at 12.45am.
Next up, Nottingham Forest at 2pm on Sunday.
See you there.