The Chelsea Cosmos Invade Your American Soccer Universe…And Lose

By the time you read this, the all-powerful Chelsea Football Club, more a hybrid of the old New York Cosmos of the NASL than you know, take hold of the United States by some big name talent and lose 1-0 to some MLS All-Stars on a rocket blast. It was supposed to be a game in which the English Premier League champions face off against MLS best eleven and the English Premier League champions prevail.

Instead, when all was said and done Chelsea didn't win and the All-Stars minus Landon Donovan, Clint Dempsey and Eddie Pope, its most recognizable stars, scored the winning goal when Canadian international and game MVP Dwayne DeRosario did his best superstar imitation from 20 yards out, at the top of the box, blasting a rocket into the upper netting.

That's all the MLS kings needed to defeat a lame-duck Chelsea bunch who were loaded with stars at every position and had 40 excuses as to why they didn't win the game, from not being in good physical shape to missing certain key players.
The way the game was supposed to have gone was simple. Chelsea would inflict upon the kings of North America its formidable talon-like weaponry, a prototype goalkeeper in Petr Cech; mighty defender of the English football universe in John Terry; dashing World Cup heroes in Didier Drogba and Michael Essien, both of whom led tiny African nations to unheard-of levels in Germany; and Frank Lampard and Shaun Wright-Phillips, England internationals who are steady in EPL football circles. You can also throw in Dutch goalpoacher Arjen Robben and Portuguese stopper Ricardo Carvalho and be ahead of most sides. Add to that, if you will, the offseason pickups of German midfield maestro Michael Ballack and Ukrainian sensation Andrei Shevchenko and you have a ridiculously superb side. Picking up Ballack is reminiscent to what the NASL Cosmos did when they were already kings of North America, acquiring Franz Beckenbauer to shore up an already tremendous midfield. Shevchenko was in good form in Germany this June and the Italian scandals helped his move to England. Yet though Chelsea brought firepower stateside, it was not enough.

One person whose absence likely helped the MLS All-Stars win its historic game is dangerous Argentine striker Hernan Crespo, given the week off. So what you saw, America, was the Chelsea Under-30 squad. They also played two different formations during the match and had a phalanx of substitutes.

It still was a well-played game with lots of action and MLS nearly scored an own goal in the opening moments of the second half, however, an MLS defender saved the errant ball from going into the net and causing certain embarrassment for the home side.

To be honest, a surefire first 11 for Chelsea in top form would beat almost any team on the planet, but that day was not Saturday. The EPL champs looked out of sorts as they embark upon a 3-game stretch in five days spanning two continents and they just finished a brutal camp in California, by all accounts.

Thank Chelsea for coming out to Chicago, but put a tiny asterisk next to the MLS victory. For MLS, which is still fighting for fans and overwhelming support, just having a great club in its presence boosted ticket sales for the game and perhaps beyond.

Thank Chelsea's billionaire owner, Roman Abromavich for that. He has spent nearly a fortune, more than hundreds of millions of dollars, to bring together what seems to be a befuddling cast of characters unseen since the days of the NASL Cosmos. He has assembled superstars at every position and even hired Jose Mourinho, a top-notch coach who led FC Porto to an unlikely Champions League title before landing in England.

Mourinho has already stated he purposely held back his older players in favor of the younger brood Saturday. In fact, two names on the reserve squad were drawn out of a hat to make the trip to the U.S., according to a Chelsea Web site.
Mourinho almost redid his entire lineup at halftime as expected, inserting a reserve player at forward. MLS countered with much the same idea, substituting more than half its lineup with younger talent and giving upcoming U.S. star Freddy Adu a chance to show what he had, as opposed to the finger he got in the recently completed World Cup. Just after the halftime whistle the next likely U.S. star showed the Chelsea defense what he had, slicing and dicing through two before losing the ball on the right flank near the goal area. It wasn't long after that when DeRosario got the game winner and MLS the bragging rights.

It's hard to say what the game meant to Chelsea, but MLS came to win and win they did, in convincing fashion. The fledgling 11-year-old league had D.C. United coach Peter Nowak behind the bench and Nowak had eight United players suited up for the game. Considering D.C. lost 2-1 to Chelsea last year in a brutal, heated match at home, the defensive result was little surprise to those who watched the 2005 version. In this one the All-Stars seemingly had the run of play for most of the match, though recent signing Solomon Kalou and Drogba gave the MLS backline fits at certain moments. The MLS countered with long flighted balls into the box for U.S. national team forward Brian Ching to run onto and tight precision passing in the middle of the park to open up the Chelsea defense. The MLS defense was hell on the English team all day long, as fellow national teamer and D.C. United stalwart Jimmy Conrad harassed anyone near his 18-yard box, drawing several cautions during the match.

In all the NASL Cosmos would have had a bad stomachache watching, in which a team filled with unlikely stars like Houston Dynamo defender Eddie Robinson defeated a team with virtual world-beaters like Essien.

It was only the seventh loss in just under 100 matches for Chelsea FC, who next head to Holland to face Kalou's old team FC Feyenoord.