Champions League football returns this mid-week as Chelsea travel to Germany to face Schalke 04. A win tomorrow & Chelsea will sit comfortably on top the group. A draw won’t hurt either. Without much ado, lets take a look at all the info we need beforehand.
DATE & TIME: October 22, 2013 at 14:45 EDT; October 22, 2013 at 19:45 GMT; October 22, 2013 at 20:45 BST; October 22, 2013 at 20:45 WAT; October 22, 2013 at 21:45 CAT; October 22, 2013 at 22:45 EAT; October 23, 2013 at 00:15 IST.
VENUE: Veltins-Arena, Gelsenkirchen, Germany.
TV/STREAMING NEWS: The match will be telecast live on ESPN3 in Australia, Sky Sport 1/2 in Austria, Al Jazeera Sport HD 3 in African sub-continent, Sportsnet 360 in Canada, Al Jazeera Sport HD3 in Egypt, beIN Sport MAX 4 in France, Sky Sport 1/1 HD/2/2 HD/3 in Germany, Ten HD in India, Sky Calcio 5 in Italy, Sukachan 5 in Japan, Sport 1 Live in Netherlands, Al Jazeera Sport HD3 in UAE, Sky Sports 2/HD in UK and Fox Sports 2 in USA.
Chelsea TV will stream the audio of the game live. It is also available on Ten Sports Live in India & Indian sub-continent, Sky Go UK in UK and Fox Soccer 2 Go in USA.
SCHALKE 04 SQUAD NEWS: Schalke are missing a number of their key first-team players due to injuries, namely, Klass-Jan Huntelaar, Jermaine Jones, Kyriakos Papadopoulos, Chinedu Obasi, Marco Hoger, Sead Kolasinac. Jefferson Farfan and Kevin-Prince Boateng are doubtful as well.
Predicted Starting XI: Hildebrand, Uchida, Santana, Howedes, Aogo, Hoger, Neustadter, Clemens, Meyer, Draxler, Slazai.
CHELSEA FC SQUAD NEWS: Marco van Ginkel is the long-term absentee. Ashley Cole, recovering from rib injury, has been left behind in Cobham as well. Andre Schuerrle, now fit, has travelled to Germany with the squad. Mourinho has confirmed John Terry will start.
Predicted Staring XI: Cech, Ivanovic, Cahill, Terry, Bertrand, Mikel, Ramires, Schuerrle, Oscar, Hazard, Torres.
REFEREE: Viktor Kassai(Hungary).
TACTICAL OVERVIEW: Schalke 04 play a 4-2-3-1 formation similar to the Blues. They line-up with two banks of four while on the defensive and mostly direct their counter through their wingbacks while transitioning to attack. As usual, Sherry has discussed Schalke’s formation & tactics in his scouting report. In absence of Huntelaar & with a doubt hovering over Kevin-Prince Boateng’s fitness, Draxler has to be the player Chelsea has to look out for. Schalke’s primary attacking threat, Draxler’s abilities with the ball are well-renowned and Ivanovic(or Azpilicueta, who is unlikely to start) must keep a check on the German.
FUN TRIVIA:
- The last time both teams met were in 2007, when the corresponding tie ended goalless and Chelsea ran out 2-0 winners at The Bridge.
- Chelsea’s overall record against Bundesliga opponents is W7 D4 L4.
- Schalke 04 are yet to concede a goal in this season’s UEFA Champions League.
IN A NUTSHELL: Chelsea didn’t have a promising start to the UEFA Champions League campaign with a loss at home to Basel. However, the win against Steaua Bucharest has provided the Blues a little bit of comfort. Chelsea need to avoid a loss and should look out for a win, in order to avoid too many permutations & combinations in the forthcoming matchdays. Jose Mourinho has said it’s not yet time to worry about the points in order to take off some pressure from the lads, while Schalke 04 manager, Jens Keller has maintained he’d be happy with a draw. Schalke are at their weakest because of the injury concerns to their key players, so this tie presents the perfect opportunity for Chelsea to go for the kill.
Go blues
I didnt hear anything about JUAN MATA, is he coming or not?
Schalke has 8 injured players? That’s the whole team right there.
This win for Chelsea is in the bag.
<3 Jose Mourinho.
Could you write where the match will be telecast live in Colombia????
The match will be telecast on Fox Sports 3 & ESPN Play Latin America in Colombia.
Tnk good match 🙂
Don’t be surprised to see Andre playing the left back.
Samu Shingirai———- Sent via Nokia Email
Mourinho should rest Lamps, for christ’s sakes he’s 35 and ought to be used sparingly cos I can hardly see any new thing lamps adds to this team, plays awfully, could hardly tackle nor track back swiftly. Of what use is he to this mourinho’s squad?
Write Schalke off if you like they cae back twice then went on to win at the weekend
its good that we can scrape up wins, even thoguh we did win fairly confident in the end. as for the possibility of facing madrid, barca, or the munchkins, i think we’re actually really lucky. think of it this way, to win the cl we have to be the best of the best and at the moment we’re facing one of them next (more or less). if we win then that would just be spectacular and it would really give the team a big confidence boost, not to mention confidence in our team on our part. but if we lose and we’re knocked out then it just means we’re not ready to win it yet, and in turn will let us focus on the other cups. yes it would be horrible to get knocked out and i wouldnt really take it away as a positive, but i like to think itll give us less to worry about. honestly at this point just winning something would be nice, everything else will follow