CHELSEA FALL TO DINAMO ZAGREB IN GROUP E OF THE CHAMPIONS LEAGUE
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The champions league is back!!! Yesterday we saw the first round of matches.
Chelsea played against Dinamo Zagreb(0-1)
Dortmund against Kobenhavn(3-0)
PSG vs Juventus(2-1)
Real Madrid vs Celtic(3-0)
Salzburg against Ac Milan (1-1)
Leipzig Vs Shakhtar Donesk(1-4)
Benfica against Maccabi Haifa(2-0)
Sevilla against Manchester City(0-4)
As you can see from the results above, some of the results are not surprising results. I expected real Madrid to win against Celtic, PSG to win their opening fixture against Juve at home and Sevilla to be beaten comfortably by City. The shock of this round of matches was Chelsea losing to Dinamo Zagreb. There is some sense of uncertainty around this Chelsea set of players.
These days they get outplayed easily against teams you would expect them to dominate and win comfortably. As expected, Mendy was replaced by Kepa in goal for their opening fixture. Chelsea's new signing aubameyang led the front line with Sterling to the left wing and Kai Havertz to the right wing.
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From the start of the match, Chelsea was as usual presented was goal-scoring opportunities to put this game to bed early on in the first half. Sterling was presented with an awesome chance from an Aubameyang chance which he delayed and a defender was able to block his shot. Aubameyang had a one-on-one with the keeper but he's was a difficult one as he had no choice than to try and beat the keeper at his near post.
In no time things changed, Dinamo had a counterattack after Chelsea charged forward to score. The ball was lifted brilliantly onto the head of Bruno Petkovic and he did a great deal of pulling two defenders out and then laying the ball to the feet of Mislac Orsic who was already running across the halfway line. He did an awesome job at controlling it and off he went whilst Fofana tried to catch him.
He was able to outrun Fofana and was left one on one with Kepa who couldn't stop him as he chipped the ball over him. From that point, Dinamo Zagreb players gained confidence and momentum. They suddenly didn't look like the underdogs in this. They played well and well their keeper was at his best to get to any ball which was thrown at him by the Chelsea squad.
This is the first defeat of the campaign to Chelsea and if things do not change fast they might end up not being able to qualify for the knockout stages of the champions league. They still have to play a revitalised Ac Milan and a Salzburg who never seem to fear competition.