Hiddink calls for Chelsea passion against Juventus
Interim Chelsea coach Guus Hiddink said he expected energy, passion and no excuses from his side against Juventus in the home leg of the Champions League first knockout round on Wednesday.
Hiddink, in charge for only eight days, told a news conference on Tuesday his players would not use his brief acquaintance with them as an excuse for a poor performance against the Turin side coached by former Chelsea coach Claudio Ranieri.
“Of course, every manager likes to have six weeks to implement things,” the Dutchman said. “I have to do it in a reduced time but we have to do it …and with pleasure. We must not give ourselves an excuse because it means you give less,” he said.
Hiddink’s team won his first game in charge 1-0 at Aston Villa last Saturday.
The Dutchman, who took on the Chelsea job until the end of the season alongside his duties as Russian national coach as a favor to Chelsea owner Roman Abramovich, said he considered Ranieri a “gentleman coach” as well as a shrewd tactician who handled the big stars in his team well.
“From what I’ve seen recently he’s a very good organizer. Juventus show themselves to have enormous tactical discipline and play like a team. They are organized in a very disciplined way.”
The game would be challenging and exciting because the Champions League remained one of the club’s ambitions, Hiddink said.
Chelsea have reached the semifinals in four of the last five seasons and lost last year’s final to Manchester United on penalties, a game Hiddink watched at the Luzhniki stadium in Moscow.
Ranieri, who took Chelsea to the semifinal in 2004, before being replaced by Jose Mourinho, said he still had good memories of his time in London but was now thinking only about Wednesday’s game.
“When the draw took place I got a good feeling. You don’t forget four years, they were four beautiful years,” Ranieri said. “But now I am focused on the game and that’s what it’s all about.”
The Italian, who became Abramovich’s first managerial casualty in 2004, said the English club remained favorites for the tie but that Juventus would not “take that lying down.”
Three managers have come and gone since Ranieri at Chelsea and the Juventus coach added he felt English football was becoming like the Italian game where owners were impatient for immediate success and coaches did not have time to build a team.
“New owners whether they are American, Arab or Russian are all convinced that if they spend they will win. But it’s not true. A football team is built brick by brick, one area of the team at a time, developing the locker room. It’s not just money that makes you win,” he said.
Ranieri, who said he still kept a house in London, had no hard feelings. “I think even if we had won the Champions League I knew my days were numbered,” he said, adding Abramovich had told him last time he saw him that he would always be welcome at Stamford Bridge.
Juventus have four fit strikers and Ranieri said they were all playing well. Asked whether he would play Alessandro Del Piero as well as fit-again David Trezeguet and Brazil’s Amauri, Ranieri refused to be drawn, saying he also had the option of playing Vincenzo Iaquinta.
He added he was proud of the part he had played in developing Chelsea’s core players such as captain John Terry and vice-captain Frank Lampard.
“All coaches aim to see young players and spot their potential and risk playing them and they are proud when they are successful. They are important at the beginning but after that the players do the job themselves,” he said.
Lampard paid a warm tribute to Ranieri, saying he deserved credit for turning Chelsea from also-rans in a side capable of winning honors.
Chelsea will still be without defender Ricardo Carvalho, who is recovering from a hamstring strain and midfielder Deco who has a slight tear in his hamstring and will be out for a few days. Joe Cole and Michael Essien are long term injuries with ligament damage though Essien has begun light training and should be fit to return next month.
