Di Matteo up against former club Chelsea with Schalke

Roberto Di Matteo will be wanting to take a big step towards qualifying for the last 16 with Schalke 04 when he comes up against former club FC Chelsea. The huge game will take place in Gelsenkirchen tonight at 20:45 CET.

Roberto Di Matteo will not be affected by the game against the team he spent many years at as a player and a manager. This will be the first time the Schalke 04 manager will have come up against his former club since winning the Champions League with them 920 days ago, and he believes that there will be no place for sentiments. “There’s no time for emotions,” stressed the Italian ahead of the game, “maybe after the match a little bit.”

But the 44-year-old won’t be reunited with a lot of players that he knows, as only four members of the team that he won the Champions League with on 19th May 2012 against Bayern München are still playing for the Blues. Didier Drogba, who was the match winner in the final back in 2012, is looking forward to the reunion: “We have had so many managers that have brought something special to Chelsea. But the one that most people remember is Roberto because he won the Champions League.”

“Chelsea against Schalke and not Mourinho against Di Matteo”

Words that Drogba’s current manager will not like to hear. Manager José Mourinho, who is still yet to win the tournament with his favourite club, wants to talk about his pre-predecessor as little as possible. “I’m not playing against him,” said the Portuguese manager. “If I played against him, then he would win because he’s better than me. But it’s Chelsea against Schalke and not me against Di Matteo.”

And the new Schalke manager, who played for the Blues between 1996 and 2002 and “still has a lot of contacts” there, believes the same thing. The reunion with his heroes comes second because the task is complicated enough. Di Matteo and the Royal Blues need at least a point against his old club if they want to keep things in their own hands going into the last group game on 10th December against NK Maribor.

If Schalke lose to Chelsea, then even a win in Slovenia might not be enough to go through. The team that are currently undefeated this season and lead the English Premier League could afford to lose the game against Schalke’s rivals Sporting Lisbon if they have already won the group.

Schalke strong at home

Schalke are relying on their home form. They haven’t lost at the Veltins-Arena so far this season and they have won all four games at home under Di Matteo- most recently a 3-2 win against VfL Wolfsburg. “No one is unbeatable, and neither are Chelsea,” said World Champion Benedikt Höwedes confidently. The captain trusts his manager: “He’ll come up with the goods again.”

Against Wolfsburg, Di Matteo surprisingly went with a back five and two strikers. But it’s not clear whether he’ll go with the same system against his former team. “We’ll talk after the final training session about how we’ll approach the game,” said the Italian, who was dismissed as manager of Chelsea almost two years to the day after only six months in charge.

But some are looking forward to the reunion: “To play against a team that Robbie manages gives the game a bit of spice,” believes Blues defender Gary Cahill, who is one of the players who won the Champions League in 2012.