Like most football clubs, Chelsea are focused on one thing above all else – getting into the Champions League and staying there. While fans might fans to win their domestic league or have a cup to celebrate, those at the top obsess over making it into the top European competition, and the data shows exactly why.
ExpressVPN’s research shows that the Champions League final was the 8th most streamed event of the whole year in 2024. IT’s a little bit behind Wimbledon, and a little ahead of the Super Bowl. It was the third most streamed football event in the past 12 months, beaten only by Euro 2024 and AFCON back in the spring. It’s up there with the biggest sports even on earth (although perhaps the most interesting piece of data there is that the Australian Open is more popular than Wimbledon).
You’ll notice one event not listed there is the Europa Conference League. That should be no surprise. UEFA’s third tier European competition is still in its infancy, but even ten or twenty years down the lines it’s never going to match up to it’s big brothers. Do you even remember who won it last year? We’ll give you the answer to that question at the bottom.
So it should be no surprise that Chelsea are keen to make this year their only year in the Conference League. The new ownership haven’t spent a billion or more on players to watch them facing Shamrock Rovers. The good news is that our league form is excellent, and we already look like we’ve got a great chance of jumping right back into the Champions League next year. We’re joint second now, with a really winnable set of games between now and February.
Even with a significant drop-off in form, at worst we look certain to get into the Europa League next season, a competition with a significantly higher standard.
But it’s not all bad, being in the Conference League, if you ask us.. There’s something to be said for a season of playing easier games in Europe to acclimatise all these young players to the rhythm of playing twice a week all year. Even the coaching staff have to adapt to that to an extent.
Time and again we’ve seen how hard it is for teams that have made it into Europe with an impressive domestic run struggle to cope with adding the demands of playing on two fronts – we’re getting that learning process out of the way now.
Knowing that our opposition is highly beatable no matter which players we put out means that manager Enzo Maresca has been able to conduct a full rotation policy, with XI changes between Premier League and Conference League games common until recently, when fitness and form have started to blur the lines between Maresca’s A team and his B team.
It’s also allowed Maresca to use some young academy players and hand out some debuts, something he’s been disappointingly reluctant to do in the games that aren’t seen as complete walkovers. We’ve seen
So while we’re not keen to repeat another year playing teams we’ve barely heard of, we will always have fond memories of our Conference League cameo – especially if we go on and win it.
*The winner of the 2024 Conference League were Olympiacos, who beat Fiorentina 1-0 in Athens with an exciting goal in extra time.
