Posts tagged Chelsea at FanHouse

Earlier this week, Will Ferrell showed up for promotional appearances on The Daily Show with Jon Stewart and MTV's Total Request Live sporting this old school Chelsea jersey. This pretty much ensures that no self-respecting Gooner will ever spend a dime on his movies again.

Ferrell is the newest addition to Chelsea's offcial Celebrity Fans list. He's up there with Michael Caine, Owen Wilson, Tara Reid, Busta Rhymes and Guy Ritchie. Sounds like a really crappy film waiting to happen, doesn't it?

(H/T: Unprofessional Foul)

The Guardian is reporting that Chelsea is prepared to offer A.C. Milan a world-record €100 million transfer fee for Brazilian midfielder Kaká.

If completed, the audacious deal would smash the previous record transfer fee of €76 million, which Real Madrid paid for Zinedine Zidane in 2001. Milan turned down a €90 million from Madrid for Kaká last summer, but with none of that filthy Champions League lucre coming in next season, Milan might use this deal to balance their books and add a less expensive, albeit less talented central midfielder.

This comes just days after Milan signed Ronaldinho from Barcelona for €21 million, so that much-anticipated Brazilian renaissance at the San Siro might not happen as expected.

Kaká beat out Cristiano Ronaldo for the Ballon d'Or in 2007 after leading Milan to the Champions League title. He would join a very crowded Chelsea midfield, which currently includes Michael Ballack, Frank Lampard, Joe Cole, Michael Essien, Jon Obi Mikel, Florent Malouda, Claude Makélélé and Shawn Wright-Phillips. Lampard, however, is expected to move to Inter Milan and be reunited with Jose Mourinho soon, while Makélélé and Wright-Phillips are believed to be on their way out.

UPDATE (7/21): Chelsea is now denying that they made this offer. Looks like it's up to Cristiano Ronaldo to break the world record for a transfer fee after all.

So last week, this Australian jewelry designer went on vacation in Italy, and she struck up a conversation with this nice Englishwoman named Elen about her bracelets. Elen then introduced the women to her husband -- Chelsea midfielder Frank Lampard. The woman clearly has no idea who Lampard is or why he might be in Italy until restaurant employees started asking if they could get their picture taken with him. Awkwardness ensues.

Toward the end of the video, Lampard reveals that he broke a treadmill during his vacation. Perhaps Ronaldinho isn't the only one who needs to lay off the pasta.

(H/T: 101 Great Goals)

Do you get the sense that Chelsea's hiring of former Portugal boss Luiz Felipe Scolari was simply a move to cause turmoil in Old Trafford?

After all, it was Scolari who fanned the flames of the Cristiano Ronaldo transfer rumors. He would certainly be interested in seeing Chelsea's main rival for the Premier League crown lose its best player. Now it seems his replacement in Portugal is one of Man United's top coaches. Carlos Queiroz, who has been Sir Alex Ferguson's right-hand man for five of the past seven seasons, is set to replace Scolari as manager of the Portguese national team.

Ferguson and Queiroz have won three Premier League titles (2003, 2007 and 2008) together, and Queiroz played a vital role in improving Man United's defensive tactics in recent years. He was also going to be the man who would convince Ronaldo to stay at Old Trafford. Will his departure cause the Red Devils to slip in their quest for a third consecutive league title and a Champions League repeat?

Makes you wonder how many more dominoes Scolari can knock over, doesn't it?

What is it about Brazilian soccer superstars and their inability to control their appetites as they push 30?

First, Ronaldo got a million choruses of "Who Ate All the Pies" shouted at him. Now Ronaldinho, at the ripe old age of 28, puts on an oversized red T-shirt and ... well, around the midsection, that's pretty much how I would look in an oversized red T-shirt, and I sit in front of a computer all day. What isn't this man eating?

Amazingly, photos like this (and like this) somehow haven't deterred some Premier League clubs from their pursuit of Big Ronnie. The cynic in me looks at Manchester City's £19 million signing of Brazilian striker Jo from CSKA Moscow and wonders if owner Thaksin Shinawatra specifically targeted Jo to try and land Ronaldinho. Sure, Jo's 30 goals in 53 appearances for CSKA speak for themselves, but two Brazilians and a Benjani up front? Wouldn't Mark Hughes love that?

Chelsea is also in the running, in no small part because Luiz Felipe Scolari coached Ronaldinho to a World Cup with Brazil in 2002. Judging from this photo, though, whoever gets Big Ronnie will have a pretty tall task whipping him back into playing shape. If he gets any bigger, EA Sports will have no choice but to plump up his Mii.

Chelsea might have a reputation among Premier League clubs for buying stars on the transfer market rather than developing them within the club -- they've already opened the silly season by signing Deco from Barcelona for £8 million -- but that doesn't mean the club's academy is lying dormant. In fact, the big London club is using its youth development program to reach out to America. Chelsea has struck up a partnership with Capital Area Soccer League, a large youth soccer club in Raleigh, North Carolina, and is already sending coaches to work with CASL youth players.

Since this is happening in my neck of the woods, I went to Raleigh to chat with some folks about this partnership.

With all the excitement surrounding EURO 2008, it might have been easy to overlook the 2008-09 Premier League schedule, which was announced on Monday. You can see the full schedule here.

The most interesting thing about the coming season's schedule is that there are no "Super Sundays" that feature the Premier League's Big Four -- Arsenal, Chelsea, Liverpool and Manchester United -- playing against each other on the same day. Those marquee matches are spread fairly evenly throughout the schedule. Perhaps the Premier League is trying to distance itself from the notion that it's a top-heavy league where only four clubs have a legitimate shot at the title. I wish them lots of luck trying to convince people otherwise.

Our pals at The Guardian also note that Manchester United's September schedule is a little rough. The Red Devils face Liverpool at Anfield on September 13, then play Chelsea at Stamford Bridge on September 20. In between those two games is their first Champions League group stage match. We should hear Sir Alex Ferguson whining about this any day now. "Waaaah! Defending two major championships shouldn't be this hard! Waaaaah!"

Of course, that assumes Ferguson doesn't follow through on his threat to bail on Man United if the club sells Cristiano Ronaldo. The offseason at Old Trafford gets more interesting every day, doesn't it?

What kind of guy is current Portugal manager and future Chelsea boss Luiz Felipe Scolari? Apparently, he's a guy who's not going to take any guff from those Serbians, as this video from a EURO 2008 qualifier shows. Ivica Dragutinovic probably didn't realize he was slapping away the hand of the Brazilian Woody Hayes. Didier Drogba should leave Stamford Bridge for his safety alone.

Fernando Duarte has a slightly more complete profile of Scolari here at The Guardian.

ESPN and the BBC are reporting that Portugal manager Luiz Felipe Scolari will take over at Chelsea starting on July 1.

The temperamental Brazilian, who infamously threw a punch at a Serbian player after a EURO 2008 qualifying match, has been the manager for the Portuguese national team since 2003 and led the team to the semifinals of the 2006 World Cup. He has had his fair share of clashes with Portuguese football officials during his time there and had been rumored to be a target of Chelsea owner Roman Abramovich since Avram Grant was sacked one day after losing the Champions League Final.

Scolari has had previous stints with national teams in Brazil and Kuwait, Brazilian clubs Cruzerio, Gremio and Palmeiras and several clubs in the Middle East. He is expected to see Portugal through the remainder of EURO 2008.

For the record, "I'm fantastic" in Italian is "Sono fantastici." So says Google, anyway.

In a move that was as hard to predict as the sun rising in the east this morning, former Chelsea boss Jose Mourinho was named the new manager at Inter Milan today.

The big Italian club has won Serie A three times in the last three years under Roberto Mancini, but after a series of spectacular flame-outs in the UEFA Champions League, Inter sacked Mancini and brought in the Special One to change their European fortunes.

Inter plans to start by giving Mourinho £100 million to spend during the summer transfer window, which means the raid on Stamford Bridge should begin any day now. Didier Drogba is probably gone after his Moscow slap fest -- even though Henk Ten Cate, the coach who tossed Drogba under the bus, was shown the door last week. Frank Lampard, Michael Essien and Ricardo Carvalho might follow Mourinho to Milan as well. After all, if you want to kill your old club, you start by buying all their biggest stars, right?