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11
Insight
After almost 18 months at Chelsea, Carlo
Ancelotti must be wondering whether he
ran over black cat on his way to Chelsea’s
training ground.
This season has seen his star midfielder,
Frank Lampard, make only 3 appearances
before a succession of injuries has him
ruled out until possibly December. John
Terry claims he may be out for weeks or
evens months, and a host of other senior
players - Alex, Michael Essien, Ramires
and Florent Malouda - have been out of
the team for extended periods.
Then there is the strange case of new
signing Yossi Benayoun. The Israeli, one
of Chelsea’s only significant signings, was
seemingly misdiagnosed by the club. Now
out for 6 months with an Achilles tear, the
severity of the injury was only discovered
when he joined up with his national team
for a friendly.
The Israel FA spokesman Gil Lebanony
said, “When Yossi Benayoun came to
Israel he didn’t practise with us, even for
a single second.”
“He came to Israel, went to the doctor and
said ‘I’ve got a pain in my Achilles tendon’.
He had a diagnosis from Chelsea that it
was only a small tear.“
“But our doctor said immediately that it
was a very serious problem and sent
him for an MRI scan. The MRI doctor
diagnosed the big tear immediately.“
“It is clear that during the flight such a tear
in the Achilles tendon couldn’t happen.
We don’t know why Carlo Ancelotti said
what he did.”
“We understand that Mr Ancelotti wants
to protect his medical staff but, as Yossi
Benayoun said, he had three MRI scans
under Chelsea doctors and can’t under-
stand how they missed such a serious
problem.”
Things get even more mysterious with
striker Didier Drogba’s fight against
malaria. With his form noticeably dropping
in recent months, the club could not
seem to solve his sudden fevers. Despite
courses of antibiotics, his fevers returned,
and it was only after a recent blood test
that the club discovered the nature of his
illness.
“For a month, Didier has had this difficulty
to train,” said Ancelotti. “He suffered. He
didn’t feel good. He didn’t have the power
or the ability to train. I think he lost some
of his condition. He was unselfish to play
ChelseaLab? How Milan’s science
has been brought to London
when he was not at
100 percent.”
Naturally,
bad
luck strikes every
professional team.
However, Chelsea’s
Russian billionaire
owner might be
wondering just what
he bought when
he raided AC Milan
to land Ancelotti’s
assistant Bruno Demichellis.
Demichellis is renowned for his pedigree
as an athlete, having been a double
European karate champion. But it is his
founding of the world famous MilanLab
that has made him such a valuable
innovator in football today.
The MilanLab is said to have prolonged
the professional careers of many of
Milan’s players, some of whom are
still playing at the highest level. Most
famously, his co-founder, Belgian doctor
Jean-Pierre Meersseman claims to be at
least partly responsible for the incredible
longevity of Milan legend Paolo Maldini.
“I could never say it was us that were
the reason Paolo Maldini played until he
was 41. Paolo is simply an exceptional
individual. But when he was about 32 or
33, he would admit himself that his career
was going slightly downhill. Paolo is
extremely complimentary about the work
we did with him, and I hope we were a
helping factor in kick-starting his career
again in his early thirties.”
The MilanLab’s secret is its holistic
approach to dealing with footballers.
The website of AC Milan says that the
system is “dependent on the balancing
of three principal functional levels:
(neuro)structural,
biochemical
and
mental”. Players’ strength and fitness is
tested, but so is their mental appitutde.
The MilanLab spokespeople claim that
they can profile a future player to help
determine his value.
One of the MilanLab’s most famous
visitors was David Beckham, who arrived
in Milan in 2008 overweight and prone to
injury. He was placed on a diet and took
his body fat from 13.7% to 8.5%. They
predicted that he could play into his late
30s.
MilanLab has been a success, a fact that
can be measured by their two Champions
League wins in the last 8 years. Those
cup-winning teams boasted many players
over 35, some approaching 40. Milan’s
model should have been perfect for
Chelsea.
Chelsea’s horror run of injuries has seen
their form dip in recent weeks. They
have a thin squad, having shed many
experienced players whose wages rather
than their skills saw them moved on.
Ancelotti’s options become limited when
there is a rash of injuries, and the team’s
uncharacteristic mauling my Sunderland
in a 3-0 defeat recently just shows their
decline.
The problem that Demichellis, and
Ancelotti, face is similar to that
encountered by Milan a decade ago. An
aging squad and a capricious oligarch
whose purchases can be too rich for his
manager’s taste are two problems shared
by the clubs. Demichelis’ success at Milan
has yet to be repeated at Chelsea. In fact,
the situation seems far worse in London
than it is in Milan.
It is widely reported that the squad
Ancelotti inherited from previous man-
agers Felipe Scolari and Guus Hiddink
(whose reign was short, putting much
of the blame onto the Brazilian World
Cup winner) was overweight and under
worked. While Chelsea have regained
the fitness that took them to the English
Premiership twice under Jose Mourinho,
the injuries continue to pile up.
It will be a test for Demichelis to put
things right at a club where the policy is
succeed or leave. But if one man has the
mental fortitude to meet the challenge, it
is Demichellis.
“In performance at this top, top level
the difference between a winner and a
loser is based on very, very little details
sometimes. A 100th of a second, a few
centimetres,” he said.
That is true for both players and managers
and their staff. Demichellis will have to be
at the top of his game.
by Timothy Mottram