Rank 28, WorldCupStory Club Index 16,710
Chelsea World Cup XI Dream Team
| Chelsea | |||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Players | Country | WCups | Games | Mins | Goals | Capt | |
| GK | Petr Cech | Czech Rep | 1 | 3 | 270 | 0 | 0 |
| RB | Dan Petrescu | Romania | 1 | 4 | 345 | 1 | 0 |
| CB | Ricardo Carvalho | Portugal | 2 | 10 | 930 | 0 | 0 |
| CB | John Terry | England | 2 | 9 | 840 | 0 | 0 |
| LB | Ashley Cole | England | 1 | 4 | 360 | 0 | 0 |
| MF | Claude Makélélé | France | 1 | 7 | 660 | 0 | 0 |
| MF | Frank Lampard | England | 2 | 9 | 840 | 0 | 0 |
| MF | Joe Cole | England | 2 | 7 | 434 | 1 | 0 |
| MF | Arjen Robben | Netherlands | 1 | 3 | 270 | 1 | 0 |
| ST | Didier Drogba | Ivory Coast | 2 | 5 | 384 | 2 | 4 |
| ST | Hernán Crespo | Argentina | 1 | 4 | 308 | 3 | 0 |
| 16 | 65 | 5641 | 8 | 4 |
Not surprisingly the Chelsea world cup dream team is quite an eclectic mix, with 8 countries represented in the starting lineup.
Petr Cech presented the most compelling case in goal, ahead of Dmitri Kharine, and avoiding the embarrassment of having to include Peter Bonetti. Dan Petrescu and Ashley Cole fill the full back slots, with Petrescu contributing a rare goal from the back. Cole has played more of his world cup time as an Arsenal player but still managed narrowly to see off competition from Nigeria’s Celestine Babayaro and England’s Graeme Le Saux. Chelsea’s two most experienced world cup players in terms of minutes played, Ricardo Carvalho and John Terry naturally fill the centre back places with only William Gallas pushing them close.
The midfield features the archetypal holding midfielder, Claude Makelele, and box-to-box man, Frank Lampard, with Joe Cole and Arjen Robben adding creative flair and pace out wide respectively. Michael Essien and Jesper Gronkjaer provided the closest competition for these places. It’s a solid midfield but perhaps lacking somewhat on world cup goals, even though Lampard should by rights have one from 2010.
Up front it is a classic combination with the strength of Didier Drogba, who also provides captaincy experience, and the pace of Chelsea’s top world cup goalscorer, Hernan Crespo. Norway’s Tore Andre Flo provides competition for places there, but Scotland’s Gordon Durie, and England’s Kerry Dixon, with a mere 4 minutes of world cup playing time, do not.
The team comes up short on world cup goals, especially from the midfield engine room, and could use more leadership, with only Drogba having captained his country in a world cup. He is one of only 3 Chelsea world cup captains overall, the others being Marcel Desailly and Dmitri Kharine.
