Chelsea F.C.

Chelsea F.C. is an English football club that plays in the English Premier League. Their home stadium is Stamford Bridge in Fulham, London.

Chelsea is considered to be one of the most successful clubs of England, having won many trophies, including 6 Premier League, 2 UEFA Champions League, 2 UEFA Europa League, 5 League Cup, 8 FA Cup, 1 UEFA Super Cup and 2 UEFA Cup Winners' Cup titles. Their all-time highest goalscorer is Frank Lampard and their most successful goalkeeper (on the basis of clean sheets and titles statistics) is Petr Čech. Chelsea is owned by the Russian billionaire businessman Roman Abramovich.

There was a supposed breakaway European Super League that Chelsea were apart of but this quickly collapsed as many English teams pulled out due to fan disagreement. Chelsea were the first of the English teams to pull out after Chelsea fans protested outside of the stadium before their match against Brighton.

History 
Chelsea started in 1905 and played the second division of the league. They won their first trophy in 1955, when they became Champions of the First Division. They won the FA Cup in 1970, 1997, 2000 and 2007. They won the League Cup in 1965, 1998, 2005 and 2007. In 1970s Chelsea failed to maintain their position of the first division, due to the financial difficulties. In 1990s they challenged the title of Premier League. They came close but did not win it until 2005 and 2006.

In 2003 the Russian billionaire, Roman Abramovich, purchased Chelsea and invested lots of capital to employ new football players. He also hired Luiz Felipe Scolari as the manager of the club. Abramovich also employed Peter Kenyon as the chief executive to be responsible for the commercial strategies of the club. This made Chelsea stronger, and they won the Premier League in consecutive years. A third straight FA Premier League title slipped through Chelsea's fingertips after their failure to defeat Arsenal at the Emirates Stadium, meaning that Manchester United had won their ninth league title in fifteen tries.

On September 20, 2007, the very successful manager José Mourinho left the club by "mutual consent". This exit came just days after a shockingly poor performance which saw them barely scrape out a 1-1 draw in a Champions League tie against Norwegian side Rosenborg B.K.. Following Mourinho's exit, Chelsea made Director of Football Avram Grant, the former manager of Israel from 2002 to 2006, the new manager of the club, until May 2008. Grant took over with Chelsea trailing in the Premier League "title race" behind Manchester United and Arsenal, and managed to keep Chelsea in the hunt for the league until the last game of the season. He got Chelsea into the Champions League Final for the first time as well as the Carling Cup Final, but he was sacked at the end of the season, along with assistant Henk ten Cate. Grant was sacked from the job after he lost in the final in a 5-6 penalty shootout loss to Manchester United and replaced by Luiz Felipe Scolari, the then-Portugal coach, in August. However, after a poor run of results Scolari was sacked on February 9, 2009. Guus Hiddink took over the club until the rest of the season. In early June they played in the FA Cup final against Everton, where Chelsea won 2-1, after Frank Lampard and Didier Drogba scored goals. In that final, Louis Saha of Everton scored the fastest goal in FA Cup history, in 25 seconds. A week later, the former Milan manager Carlo Ancelotti was named as the new manager of Chelsea. Antonio Conte was their manager until July 2018 and helped them win the 2016/17 league title. Frank Lampard, former Chelsea player, became Chelsea F.C.'s successor manager. He was sacked in mid-season of 2020/21 following series of poor performances. Thomas Tuchel replaced him, and successfully took Chelsea to the finals of UEFA Champions League 2020/21, played against Manchester City, held in Istanbul, Turkey. Chelsea won the final 1-0, with the winning goal scored by Kai Havertz.

League position

Former position

First-Team Squad

Notable players 
 Frank Lampard
 John Terry
 Didier Drogba
 Petr Čech
 Michael Ballack
 Michael Essien
 Andriy Shevchenko
 Joe Cole
 Florent Malouda
 Ashley Cole
 Eden Hazard
 Peter Bonetti
 Wayne Bridge
 Claude Makélélé
 William Gallas
 Jimmy Greaves
 Peter Osgood
 Dennis Wise
 Ruud Gullit
 Mark Hughes
 Gianfranco Zola
 Celestine Babayaro
 Tore André Flo
 Marcel Desailly
 Jimmy Floyd Hasselbaink
 Damien Duff
 Shaun Wright-Phillips

References 

1905 establishments in England
Premier League clubs
Football clubs in London