By Robert Woodward
LONDON, June 2 - With the purchase of Michael
Ballack and Andriy Shevchenko, Chelsea have taken the gloves off
and laid bare their plan for world domination.
The London club have won the English title for the last two
seasons after an unprecedented spending spree by owner Roman
Abramovich encompassing more than 20 players.
These men, almost all of them international players, have
helped Jose Mourinho build a formidable team but none of the
recruits, except perhaps Argentina's Hernan Crespo, was a truly
world-famous name.
The arrivals of Ballack, Germany's captain, and Shevchenko,
one of the finest post-war European strikers, changes all that.
Chelsea have catapulted themselves into an elite occupied by
Real Madrid, Barcelona and Manchester United who reap the
commercial benefits of their club's cachet, almost regardless of
how their team perform on the field.
"This demonstrates Chelsea are operating at the top level
because he (Shevchenko) is recognised as probably the best
striker in Europe, and he comes from a massive club in Milan,"
said chief executive Peter Kenyon.
England is now too small for Abramovich and his ambitions,
and sealing a third Premier League title appears a foregone
conclusion for those running Stamford Bridge.
Only winning Europe's biggest prize, the Champions League,
for the first time will suffice next season.
"It (the Champions League) is the holy grail for everybody,
certainly all the top clubs. To get one in our boardroom would
be nice," said Kenyon.
BOND ELEMENTS
Chelsea's plan to annex all that glitters in European soccer
has many elements of a 1960s James Bond movie.
The Russian billionaire pulling all the strings who smiles
but never speaks in public and his right-hand man with piercing
eyes who demands total loyalty from his troops.
Now they are supported by a German built like a small tank
and a deadly assassin brought up behind the Iron Curtain.
Even the Americans at Manchester United, the Glazer family,
do not have the financial muscle to overpower Abramovich.
Indeed, it is very hard to see United, Liverpool or Arsenal
stopping Chelsea for the foreseeable future.
Chelsea's midfield of powerful Ghanaian Michael Essien,
England stalwart Frank Lampard, Ballack and France's Claude
Makelele, with winger Joe Cole buzzing around the edges, ranks
among the most formidable in the history of the English game.
The defence could still be bolstered by Real Madrid's
Brazilian Roberto Carlos while the attack, with or without
Crespo, has multiple possibilities centred on Shevchenko.
However, Robert Carlos's present employers, Real Madrid,
have proved over the last three seasons that bringing together
some of the world's greatest players does not necessarily result
in a winning team.
At Chelsea, problems could arise from Mourinho's "special"
way of doing things and his insistence on team rather than
individual merit.
The Portuguese, a Champions League winner with Porto, said
last season he had thought of leaving Chelsea because of the
opprobrium piled on him and his club despite, or because of,
their achievements.
Mourinho and his players have had a number of run-ins with
soccer authorities and became increasingly annoyed last season
with criticism of their style of play and the media's obsession
with Abramovich's millions.
Mourinho's policy of ensuring he has the choice of two top
quality players for each position and rotating at will can also
rub some players up the wrong way.
It will be particularly interesting to see how Ballack,
master of all he surveyed with Bayern Munich and Bayer
Leverkusen for many years, will take to his new boss.