European Super Cup

If you can bear to tear yourself away from transfer deadline day, the European Super Cup in Monaco kicks off at 19:45 tonight and is live on ITV 1 and Sky Sports 2. It's the winners of the Champions League, Chelsea, against the winners of the Europa League, Atletico Madrid.

Prediction: Chelsea 2-1 Atletico Madrid

Chelsea: Cech, Ivanovic, Cahill, Luiz, Cole, Mikel, Lampard, Ramires, Hazard, Mata, Torres. Subs: Turnbull, Romeu, Oscar, Moses, Meireles, Sturridge, Bertrand.

Atletico Madrid: Courtois, Juanfran, Miranda, Godin, Filipe Luis, Mario Suarez, Gabi, Adrian, Koke, Turan, Falcao. Subs: Sergio Asenjo, Raul Garcia, Rodriguez, Silvio, Cata Diaz, Diego Costa, Emre.

Referee: Damir Skomina (Slovenia)

As good as Atletico and Falcao have been in the first half Chelsea's defending has been pathetic.

This one's over.

Amazed at the complete gulf in class between the sides, i think 4-1 is generous to Chelsea.

So, Chelsea are hammered by Atheltico. They have been found out. Chelsea had the luckiest win ever in the champions league, and chelsea fans know it. Unofrtunately, people need to wake up and realise that, although the PL may be the more exiting, la liga is ten times the league quality wise the PL, fact.

Chelsea could have conceded 4/5 that first leg to barca, and people say 'oh, they defended well' but the fact is they were plain lucky. Barca decimated chelsea but somehow didn';t score (bad finishing) and then bayern exactly the same but didn;t kill them off.

Fact is, athletico, who people joke about in la liga saying 'oh its a 2 team league, exactly the same as the premier, the fact is the teams in la liga are far far better than the teams in the PL.

You got all that from one nothing match? Wow, impressive.

This is despite all the overwhelming evidence from actual matches in which English sides have dominated the semi-finals and finals of the Champions League for the past half-decade.

Liam wrote:So, Chelsea are hammered by Atheltico. They have been found out. Chelsea had the luckiest win ever in the champions league, and chelsea fans know it. Unofrtunately, people need to wake up and realise that, although the PL may be the more exiting, la liga is ten times the league quality wise the PL, fact.

Chelsea could have conceded 4/5 that first leg to barca, and people say 'oh, they defended well' but the fact is they were plain lucky. Barca decimated chelsea but somehow didn';t score (bad finishing) and then bayern exactly the same but didn;t kill them off.

Fact is, athletico, who people joke about in la liga saying 'oh its a 2 team league, exactly the same as the premier, the fact is the teams in la liga are far far better than the teams in the PL.

Thanks I needed a laugh. Premier League is streets ahead of La Liga. As for tonight's result, Atletico wanted it more and played very impressively, Falcao in particular. Chelsea won't be too disappointed.

I think teams like Athletico, who break quickly and actually punish mistakes unlike what Barca and Bayern did last season would hammer Chelsea. Chelsea barely make the top 10 sides in Europe in my opinion, i think they are better this season but last year they just constantly scraped through with luck and anti football. Hopefully this season the title will go back to a team who actually play football, like Bayern,Barca, Real, Dortmund, Man City or something like that.

Liam wrote:So, Chelsea are hammered by Atheltico. They have been found out. Chelsea had the luckiest win ever in the champions league, and chelsea fans know it. Unofrtunately, people need to wake up and realise that, although the PL may be the more exiting, la liga is ten times the league quality wise the PL, fact.

Chelsea could have conceded 4/5 that first leg to barca, and people say 'oh, they defended well' but the fact is they were plain lucky. Barca decimated chelsea but somehow didn';t score (bad finishing) and then bayern exactly the same but didn;t kill them off.

Fact is, athletico, who people joke about in la liga saying 'oh its a 2 team league, exactly the same as the premier, the fact is the teams in la liga are far far better than the teams in the PL.

Zenit beat United in 2008 so by your logic that would mean the Russian League has far better teams than the Premier League. This match meant nothing, Chelsea were only there because they had to show up and they played like that. No Chelsea player on that pitch cared about the super cup like the Athletico players, to Chelsea this was just a glorified friendly. There was nothing lucky about Chelsea winning the Champions League, they won because they had a solid defence and the right tactics. And don't forget that English teams have done incredibly well in the Champions League. There's been three different winners since 2005 and four different finalists not to mention an all English final in 2008 and should have been repeated in 2009. And let's not forget that a few years ago, Liverpool hammered Real Madrid 4-0 and that was in a match that actually mattered.

I don't want to get into this whole 'our league is better than their league' debate as that is for another thread. But I will say this regarding the topic at hand:

Chelsea would have gone into that game wanting it as much as Atletico did and you only have to look at the team they put out to see this. They fielded all of their big players for God sake. They were given a beating - it happens - but lets not spout tripe about them not caring. Had Chelsea gone on to lift that trophy they'd have been bouncing around as much as the Atletico players were.

Sometimes we have to just take our medicine.

Sorry but this friendly excuse is garbage, fact is they played against a team who could actually finish, if Napoli could have done that Chelsea wouldn't have made it out of the second round.

On another note how good is Falcao, everytime i watch him he's the best player on the park and can score all types of goals. Why were Europe's top clubs not trying to get him? i couldn't name a single striker who i think is better than him at the moment.

Chelsea wouldn't have wanted this nearly as much as Athletico, just look at the difference in the Spanish Super Cup and the Charity Shield. Teams in Spain put a lot more emphasis on trophies like this. What I saw from Chelsea was a team of players who wanted to conserve their energy and not risk and injury for important matches.

What i saw was a team of limited skilled players picked apart and finished off by one of the best finishers in the world.

monty junior wrote:What i saw was a team of limited skilled players picked apart and finished off by one of the best finishers in the world.

This is the same team that's shutdown Messi on multiple occasions, if this was a champions league match it would have been a lot different.

Reaper wrote: What I saw from Chelsea was a team of players who wanted to conserve their energy and not risk and injury for important matches.

Should have gone to Specsavers buddy. I saw myself as a future millionaire when I filled out my Lotto slip earlier today. Just didn't happen.

They played the exact same way in preseason, in their final few PL games and in the Charity Shield after Ivanovic's red card, this match is indicative of nothing and won't effect them going forward.

You are absolutely right that this result will have no bearing on their domestic form but I will never believe for one minute that they didn't go into this match not wanting to win or even caring.

If the players are neither hurt or embarrassed by that drubbing then something is seriously wrong in my opinion.