Chelsea F.C. and FC Barcelona football rivalry

The 2000s have seen an intensifying footballing rivalry between Chelsea Football Club and FC Barcelona, following several high-profile, controversial, and hotly-contested games in the UEFA Champions League.

1999-00

In the UEFA Champions League 1999-00 season, Chelsea and Barcelona were drawn in the quarter-finals. This was Chelsea's debut season in the Champions League, and by most accounts most people connected with the London club were delighted simply to have made it this far. Barcelona, in contrast, were seasoned campaigners in the Champions League, had won its predecessor competition, the European Cup in 1992, and were hot favourites to win the competition.

Barcelona, coached by 1995 Champions League-winning coach Louis Van Gaal, boasted the talents of future European and World Footballers of the Year Luís Figo and Rivaldo, Spanish internationals Luis Enrique, Sergi Barjuan, and Josep Guardiola, and Dutch internationals Patrick Kluivert, Philip Cocu, Ruud Hesp, and the De Boer brothers Frank and Ronald. Chelsea, coached by player-manager Gianluca Vialli (a Champions League winner with Juventus F.C. in 1996), had Italians Gianfranco Zola and Roberto Di Matteo, French World Cup 1998 winners Didier Deschamps, Marcel Desailly and Franck Leboeuf, Norwegian international Tore Andre Flo, Dutchman Ed de Goey, and Romanian international Dan Petrescu.

Chelsea created a sensational upset by winning the first leg 3-1 at their home stadium Stamford Bridge. However, in the second leg at the Camp Nou, the game had finished 3-1 to Barcelona in normal time. Barcelona was a far superior team overall than Chelesa. This made it 4-4 on aggregate with no away goals rule advantage to either team and meant that an additional 30 minutes of extra time was necessary.

Barcelona were awarded two controversial penalties late in the second leg, and Chelsea's hopes were all but dashed when Swedish referee Anders Frisk sent off Chelsea's Nigerian left-back Celestine Babayaro. Rivaldo missed the first, but scored the second, making the score 4-1 and putting Barça in the lead on aggregate. Patrick Kluivert scored a fifth goal in the second period of extra time, making the final score 5-1 on the night and 6-4 over the two legs to Barcelona.

The only participants from this tie still playing for either side are Barcelona midfielder Xavi, who played in both legs of the tie, current Barcelona captain and centre-back Carles Puyol, who was an unused substitute for the second leg at the Nou Camp, and current Chelsea and England captain and centre-back John Terry, who was then a youngster in the Chelsea Reserves.

2004-05

Chelsea and Barcelona were drawn in the second round (first knockout round) of the UEFA Champions League 2004-05 season. By this time, Chelsea, having been taken over by Russian oil magnate Roman Abramovich (who bought the club from Ken Bates in 2003), had been transformed virtually overnight into a 'superpower' in footballing terms, armed with high amounts of transfer funds and signing renowned players (Damien Duff, Arjen Robben, Claude Makelele etc) and non-playing staff (manager Jose Mourinho, ironically a former Barcelona assistant coach and Barcelona B head coach), to the extent that traditional European giants Barcelona was thought to be marginally the underdog going into the game. However, Barcelona still had a team that was the envy of Europe, including reigning World Footballer of the Year Ronaldinho and luminaries like Samuel Eto'o, Deco, Ludovic Giuly, Rafael Marquez, and 1999-2000 survivor and now Barca captain Puyol (indeed, they would win the competition the very next year). Chelsea exacted revenge for their 2000 elimination in two highly controversial encounters.

Chelsea had ended the group phase as group winners while Barcelona had finished second to A.C. Milan in their group. As a result, Chelsea had the benefit of playing the second leg at their Stamford Bridge home ground.

In the first leg at the Nou Camp, Barcelona dominated much of the game, but it was Chelsea who took a 1-0 half-time lead via a Juliano Belletti own goal. In the second half Anders Frisk, again in charge of the Nou Camp leg, showed Chelsea forward Didier Drogba a second yellow card for a challenge on goalkeeper Víctor Valdés whilst Chelsea were still leading. Video replays showed that Drogba had tried to pull himself away before the collision and the resultant contact was not particularly excessive. After the match, outspoken Chelsea manager José Mourinho claimed to have witnessed Barcelona manager Frank Rijkaard enter Frisk's changing room at half-time, which is illegal under FIFA rules, and that the refereeing in the second half cost Chelsea the game. Mourinho also predicted (correctly) that the second leg would be officiated by renowned Italian referee Pierluigi Collina.

Barcelona went on to win 2-1 with goals from Argentine striker Maxi Lopez and Cameroonian Samuel Eto'o. It was later revealed that Rijkaard had indeed approached Frisk, but Frisk had declined to talk to him. Mourinho was handed a two match touchline ban for his comments. For Frisk, this was his last major game as a referee; he retired within weeks after allegedly receiving death threats from Chelsea fans. The fall-out saw UEFA official Volker Roth call Mourinho "an enemy of football", though UEFA distanced itself from the comment and privately censured Roth.

Chelsea won the second leg 4-2, with the Londoners scoring 3 goals inside the first 20 minutes through Eidur Gudjohnsen, Frank Lampard and Damien Duff. Ronaldinho brought Barcelona back into the game with two goals, the first from a penalty kick, awarded against Paulo Ferreira for a hand ball, and the second a masterful measured chip from outside the area, which is acknowledged as one of the greatest goals in Champions League history.

With the score at 4-4 on aggregate, with Barca holding the edge on away goals, John Terry headed in from a corner to give Chelsea a 4-2 lead on the night and put them through. Barcelona's players claimed Chelsea centre-back Ricardo Carvalho had made an obstruction foul on goalkeeper Victor Valdes at the set piece, and as such the goal should not have been awarded. However, Italian referee Pierluigi Collina dismissed the Barcelona protests and ruled that the goal stood. There were no further changes in the score, and Chelsea were through while Barcelona were out. Upon the final whistle, Rijkaard and Chelsea scout Andre Villas confronted each other on the touchline, Eto'o was accused of spitting at stewards and in turn claimed to have been racially abused by a Chelsea steward. Both he and Ronaldinho were involved in scuffles with officials in the tunnel. Chelsea owner Roman Abramovich had bottles thrown at him by the visiting Barcelona fans.

Chelsea would eliminate Bayern Munich before falling to eventual champions Liverpool F.C. in an all-English semi-final.

2005-06

A year after the previous encounter, the sides were again drawn against each other in the Champions League second round, although with Barca winning this time. This time round, Barcelona had won their group and Chelsea had finished second (to Liverpool), meaning that Barcelona would host the second leg at their own Nou Camp ground. In the build-up to the first match at Stamford Bridge Barcelona accused Chelsea of deliberately watering the pitch, supposedly to hamper the Catalans' attacking tactics.

Barcelona won the match 2-1 thanks to Eto'o's late headed winner after an own goal apiece (from Terry and Thiago Motta respectively) had left the sides tied at 1-1. By doing so, they became the first team to win a 90-minute game at Stamford Bridge since Jose Mourinho's appointment. However, the key talking point in the match was the dismissal of Chelsea's Spanish left-back Asier del Horno for a reckless first-half tackle on Barca's Lionel Messi with the score at 0-0. As both players went to ground, the result was a farce as the pair both rolled around feigning injury, Messi in order to get Del Horno sent off and Del Horno in an attempt to garner the referee's sympathy. After the game Mourinho protested the decision and accused Messi of being an actor. Del Horno accused Messi of cheating in order to get him red carded, but Messi stated that Del Horno should have been punished for an earlier challenge.

The build up to the return leg was no less bitter. Mourinho's outspoken criticism of Barcelona and Messi in particular made him an easy target for the Catalan side's fans. The Chelsea manager took a pre-match stroll around the pitch, supposedly to divert the crowd's anger away from his players and onto himself, while the home crowd mercilessly taunted Mourinho with cries of "Traductor" ("Translator"), referring to the Portuguese coach's past as an interpreter for Sir Bobby Robson during Robson's spell as head coach of Barcelona and mocking him as being 'nothing more than an interpreter'. The tactic did not work; in a tepid match, Chelsea rarely looked like scoring the two goals they needed.

A superb solo effort from Ronaldinho broke the deadlock as he jinked past the Chelsea defence, stopping only to barge Terry to the floor, before scoring. Terry got a small measure of revenge when a penalty was awarded to Chelsea after he was felled by Giovanni van Bronckhorst, although replays suggested that there was minimal contact and Terry had merely lost his footing. Lampard slotted home the spot kick deep into injury time. Mourinho claimed that Chelsea were moral victors, saying that Barcelona have never beaten Chelsea when Chelsea have kept eleven men on the pitch.

Barcelona went on to win the Champions League that season, knocking out Benfica and AC Milan beating Arsenal 2-1 in the final. It was Barcelona's second European Cup / Champions League victory overall, after their first triumph in the competition in 1992.

2006-07

The sides were drawn together in the group stages of the following season's tournament. Barcelona was the first-pot seed (top seed) in the group, Chelsea the second-pot seed, Werder Bremen of the German Bundesliga the third-pot entry, and Levski Sofia of Bulgaria the final entrant. The draw was attacked by Mourinho, who complained that Chelsea, champions of England for the past two seasons and 2005 semi-finalists, had been deemed only a second-pot seed.

The first match at Stamford Bridge was relatively calm, with Chelsea in a more solemn mood after serious head injuries to goalkeepers and Carlo Cudicini during the previous weekend in a match at Reading (resulting in the third-choice Henrique Hilario being thrust between the posts for both games), as well as the death of Chelsea Pitch Owners employee Victoria Buchanan in a traffic accident the previous day.

Chelsea won 1-0 with a spectacular goal by Didier Drogba a minute into the second half; Drogba exacted revenge for his sending off two seasons before despite suffering a facial injury in the first half which almost saw him substituted. Barcelona, suffering from long term injuries to key marksman Eto'o, and receiving an ineffectual display from Ronaldinho (who was marked out of the game by Chelsea defender Boulahrouz), offered little attacking threat beyond Messi. The game was the first UEFA Champions League meeting between the clubs in which either side kept a clean sheet.

Before the second match on 31 October 2006, there was some controversy involving Guðjohnsen and a penalty awarded to Barcelona against Recreativo Huelva the previous Saturday, after the Icelandic forward was perceived to have dived to win a penalty. Mourinho commented that Guðjohnsen had learned to dive during his brief time in Spain. Mourinho also claimed that the Barcelona-Chelsea game was the game that 'the whole world was waiting to see'.

The game ended in a 2-2 draw, with Drogba scoring a stoppage time equaliser. Deco gave Barcelona the lead within three minutes of the kick-off with a low drive from outside the area, which Lampard cancelled out with a chip from a tight angle which looped over Valdes just after half-time. The game was marred by constant bickering and unsportsmanlike play, Márquez courted controversy by pushing Drogba over and stamping on Michael Essien, Carvalho stuck his studs into Portuguese national team team-mate Deco's stomach under the guise of an aerial challenge, and six Chelsea players were booked for dissent and violent conduct. Ronaldinho created Gudjohnsen's goal with a dazzling burst of pace to beat his marker Khalid Boulahrouz. Didier Drogba popped up with the equaliser deep into injury time, prompting wild celebrations from the Chelsea players and coaching staff.

The match ended with the usually calm Rijkaard entering the pitch to remonstrate with Italian referee Stefano Farina for only playing 5 minutes of injury time instead of the allocated 6 (by the rules of the game, the amount of stoppage time that is actually played is left to the referee's discretion). The result of the match made Barcelona's task of advancing from the group stage much more difficult, which they only managed to do after overcoming Werder Bremen 2-0 in the final group game.

Barcelona fans were further antagonised by an exuberant celebration by Mourinho, as well as the Chelsea players joining each other in a post-game team huddle in a corner of the Nou Camp pitch. In his post-match press conference, Mourinho renewed hostilities by making a jibe at Rijkaard, saying that he would love to be in Rijkaard's job. He also claimed that Barcelona players enjoy favouritism from referees, stating that they are protected by referees because of the status of the club.

In the knockout stages, both Barcelona and Chelsea were eliminated by finalists Liverpool F.C., at the round of sixteen and semi-finals, respectively.

Results
;65/66 Inter-Cities Fairs Cup SF

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:Play-off

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;99/00 Champions League QF

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;04/05 Champions League R2

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;05/06 Champions League R2

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;06/07 Champions League Group A

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Trivia

* Total matches played: 11
* Matches won by FC Barcelona: 5
* Matches drew: 2
* Matches won by Chelsea: 4
* Goals for FC Barcelona: 22
* Goals for Chelsea: 16

* When Jose Mourinho was Chelsea's manager, Chelsea had never lost to Barcelona in any game where they finished with the full complement of 11 players. However, they had never avoided defeat in any game where they had a player sent off.

* The group phase meeting between Chelsea and Barcelona in 2006-2007 was the first home-and-away set of games in 40 years between the two clubs in which neither team had a player sent off. Each of the previous three sets had a Chelsea player sent off in each (Celestine Babayaro in 2000, Didier Drogba in 2005, and Asier Del Horno in 2006).

* When the teams met in 2000, the captains of both teams were central midfielders (Luis Enrique for Barcelona, Dennis Wise for Chelsea). When they met again in 2005 and 2006, the captains of both teams were central defenders (Carles Puyol for Barcelona and John Terry for Chelsea).

* At least 10 national team captains have participated in this fixture.

for Chelsea:

** John Terry (England)
** Didier Deschamps and Marcel Desailly (France)
** Michael Ballack (Germany)
** Didier Drogba (Cote d'Ivoire)
** Andriy Shevchenko (Ukraine)

for Barcelona:

** Carles Puyol (Spain)
** Frank de Boer (Netherlands)
** Luís Figo (Portugal)
** Rafael Márquez (Mexico)

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