Enzo Maresca has told his Chelsea players passionately that one of them should seize their chance to become their hero on Sunday, by taking on the aim that Nottingham Forest beats to conquer the qualification of the Champions League at the expense of their city grounds.
The blues boss said that he could remember the last day of 2002-03 when the strike of Jesper Gronkjaer arranged the winner-hakers of Liverpool, while Chelsea won elite competition in Europe instead.
Maresca's friend Claudio Ranieri was then manager and Roman Abramovich went to buy the club that summer. The Champions League was a huge lure for the Russian billionaire and without the winner of Gronkjaer – since described as 'the £ 1 billion goal' – who may never have experienced historical acquisition.
“I can feel that the players are aware that this is the game,” said Maresca prior to Sunday's Superhowdown with the forest of Nuno Espirito Santo. “They are aware of where we are going and aware of the environment we are going to find.”
On the winner of Gronkjaer for Chelsea in 2003, Maresca added: 'They all dream about it to be the one who scores the goal and we end up in the Champions League.
'If you remember a few games ago, Tyrique George against Fulham, he gave us the chance to come back to the game and then we won. So you never know. It can be one defender. It can be a midfielder. You never know. '
Mail Sport said Maresca that he is now the longest serving head coach of Chelsea under their current property, after he survived the spells of Thomas Tuchel, Graham Potter and Mauricio Pochettino.
“Wow,” he said smiling. “We had to manage sounds in the beginning. But if you remember it, I often said in this room that the sound was more from outside than inside.
'Inside, since I came to the club, it looked a normal situation. I don't feel that it was a mess. It was, “big squad”, “many managers”, bla, bla, bla. But inside it was normal.
'It's all about results. You have more noise if you don't get any results. And you have less noise if you get results. We said that when we were second during the season, November, December, January, everyone was happy. People said, “Chelsea is back”. Then we dropped points in February and everyone said: “Chelsea was not good enough”. This is normal in a large club like Chelsea. '
Maresca was in a relaxed mood, even a joke when he was asked how Moises Caicedo started this season every other Premier League match: “He will not play on Sunday.”
A long break followed before he revealed that he was wriggling us. Instead, Caicedo will be the first Chelsea player to start all 38 league games since Cesar Azpilicueta in 2018-19.