On Saturday evening, Chelsea will celebrate the famous victory over Bayern Munich in the 2012 Champions League final, which brought European football’s most prestigious club trophy to London for the first time, as well as paying tribute to the late Gianluca Vialli, who played a key role in a revolution at Stamford Bridge which made the Blues successes which followed possible.

In the build-up to the Legends of Europe game, one of those returning players who started the 2012 Champions League final for Chelsea, Salomon Kalou, recalls his memories from that game and the campaign which led to it.

• Get your tickets to see and Kalou and the rest of the Chelsea Legends in action at Stamford Bridge at 7pm on Saturday 9 September

First, however, he shared his tip for which of his friends and former 2012 team-mates will be the player to watch on Saturday, remaining cautious about the suggestion it might actually be himself, given the 38-year-old only recently hung up his boots.

‘I was still playing until last year, but if I am one who is still in good shape, I think it will be two guys then,’ he responds with a laugh. ‘John Mikel Obi will be fit enough because he’s younger than us, he was the young one. Also he’s been training every day, I think he started preparing for the game two months ago! He’s been in the gym for the last two months so he will be the fittest one out of everybody.’

Moving on to his memories of 2012, one of the first subjects raised is something which caught the eye on that glorious day in Munich before a ball had even been kicked, namely the distinctive new haircut Kalou arrived in Germany sporting for this special game. ‘Imagine if I turn up on Saturday with the same hairstyle!’

However, as the former winger explains, the intricate pattern shaved into his head wasn’t just a case of wanting to look his best on the big stage, but had a deeper meaning for him after being given a second chance by manager Roberto Di Matteo, who took over from Andre Villas-Boas in the second half of 2011/12.

‘I did it because when the season started I wasn’t playing that much, because we changed coaches in the summer. AVB came and I played the first two games for him and after that I didn’t start another league game before I went to the Africa Cup of Nations. After I came back, we then swapped coach, and Robbie took over.

‘Robbie was the assistant coach with AVB and doing the training the whole time. So he saw that all through that period, even though I was not playing, I was training 100 per cent, doing my thing and not complaining. So when he took over he gave me my chance and I took it.

‘I remember when we were playing Benfica in the first leg, he called me into his room and told me: ‘today you’re going to start’. I wasn’t believing him because I’d just come back in the team, starting three games after not playing for so long, and then I’m going to start a big game like this, a quarter-final of the Champions League away from home, it would be a tough moment. Then we won that game 1-0 and I scored the winner.

‘The story about the haircut is that it was a spider. In my mind a spider is always stuck to things, glued to things and never is going to give up, it’s always going to push forward. So when I scored at Benfica it reminded me of a spider and not giving up. So I was like: ‘okay, the day we make the final I’m going to turn up with a spider haircut’!

It is not just on a personal level that Kalou is so grateful for the role Di Matteo played in that 2012 victory, after stepping up to lead the team at the start of March. Salomon believes the trust between manager and players made a huge contribution to our overall success.

With a vastly experienced squad full of leaders, who for the most part had been playing together for many years, winning plenty of trophies at domestic level in the process, the Italian coach’s greatest skill was perhaps knowing when to intervene and when to let the tight-knit group get on with things. That was perhaps most notable in the last few hours before a game, after the training ground work had been completed.

‘This group of players that we had, I would kind of say we didn’t need too much preparation, because we had been together for so long that everything fell naturally. Even when Robbie took the team, he didn’t make too much change in the team. It’s the fact that he knew, understood, the way the team functioned, the way the group of guys that we were functioned together. I think we translated that onto the pitch and that helped us.

‘He trusted the players to do the right thing and I think sometimes this is the way, giving big responsibility to the players. The fact that we had been together a long time and also with the experience that the players had there, his trust created the dynamic that helped us to win. Since he took over it felt like we could win every game, that just shows the level of confidence that we were playing with was down to the management of the team.’

That confidence would prove vital on the day, as Kalou lined up on the right wing for Chelsea at the Allianz Arena to take on Bayern Munich in their own stadium with the title champions of Europe at stake. The Ivorian explains by confirming what many who remember the opening exchanges of that final will have long suspected, that the immense pressure felt by both sides going into the match played a big part.

‘For both teams there was a lot of pressure,’ he says. ‘For Bayern, playing a big game like this, playing a final at home, it would feel like you have to do everything right. In our case, we were playing away against a team like Bayern, who won everything in Germany that year. You are going to their home, so you are afraid to not let them get the first goal. So both teams went into the game with a lot of apprehension and due to that fact we were both waiting for the key moment. I think that showed in the first 10 minutes or 15 minutes.’

However, Chelsea had something in the locker which would see them through that, even after Thomas Muller had given Bayern the lead with seven minutes remaining of normal time. The experiences of so many great escapes en route to the final had left the Blues with a feeling that they could overcome any odds.

Such was the strength of that confidence in their own ability to come back in the most challenging circumstances that even as an exhausted Salomon left the field to be replaced by Fernando Torres with around five minutes left on the clock and the Blues trailing 1-0, knowing he had just kicked his last ball for Chelsea as his contract came to an end that summer, Kalou still kept the faith that his team-mates would turn it around and he would be able to say goodbye as a European champion.

‘To be honest, because I think since the game against Napoli, we always had this kind of moment where we always had the belief that as long as the game’s still going we also have the hope to do something.

‘It happened in Barcelona, with Messi getting the penalty, missing it, Fernando taking the ball and going one-v-one with the keeper. That was the spirit of the team at that time, so regardless how the game was going, we always had that belief.

‘So we continued to believe, even though it was difficult because we conceded a penalty right at the start of extra time. But Petr Cech kept it out and for me he was the man who saved the day, beside Drogba, of course, with the equalising goal.’

Cech and Drogba weren’t finished there, of course, also becoming the heroes of the penalty shoot-out which eventually sealed our first-ever Champions League title, sparking wild celebrations for those in blue, on and off the pitch.

And there is one moment which clearly stands out in Kalou’s memory from the aftermath of the victory, the moment he and his team-mates brought the trophy home to SW6.

‘The bus tour in London when we came back,’ he responds unequivocally when asked for his favourite memory from the celebrations. ‘We knew that it was a special moment and we’d never get it again. Not many get something like this two times in your career, when you have a big trophy and you parade it on top of the bus. Only a few players experience that at all, not a lot of players get to experience those moments, but we did.’

All of that and more will be remembered as those who made those moments so special, both the players on the pitch and the supporters in the stands or lining the parade route through west London, come together once again at the Bridge on Saturday, and it is an occasion Kalou is proud to be involved in.

‘Since I left Chelsea in 2012, I’ve only been back to Stamford Bridge once, to watch a game, but that was a long time ago. It was a Champions League game, Chelsea against Galatasaray, when Didier Drogba came back with Galatasaray in 2014. So I’m looking forward to being back.

‘It’s a good cause. I love to be a part of it because the cause is great and I think Vialli inspired our generation of football. So to be part of this moment is very meaningful for me.’

You can join Kalou and the host of other former Blues from our 2012 Champions League triumph and the previous generation as we celebrate our Munich victory and remember true Chelsea legend Vialli at the Bridge on Saturday. The final few tickets for Legends of Europe are still available here from just £35 for adults and £17 for concessions. All proceeds will be split between The Chelsea Foundation and The Royal Marsden Cancer Charity, which supports the work of The Royal Marsden NHS Foundation Trust, where Vialli was treated.