Chelsea’s final warm-up game for the 2022/23 season takes Thomas Tuchel’s side to north-east Italy for our first match against Udinese in over 20 years.
Gearing up in Italy
Italy was a regular pre-season destination for Chelsea around the turn of the Millennium as we played 10 matches there under Ruud Gullit, Gianluca Vialli and Claudio Ranieri from 1996 to 2003.
Ranieri in particular seemed to enjoy preparing for the new campaign in his homeland as we travelled there during all three of his pre-seasons with the Blues. It was on the first of those summer visits in 2001 that we met Udinese as Jimmy Floyd Hasselbaink’s 57th minute strike cancelled out Mohammed Gargo’s early opener for the hosts in a 1-1 draw.
Since our matches at Cascia and Lazio in July 2003, the Blues have not played a pre-season match in Italy although we did take on Serie A sides Roma, AC Milan, Inter Milan and Fiorentina in the United States, Russia, Singapore, France and at Stamford Bridge.
The Little Zebras
Founded in 1896 and nicknamed Le Zebrette (the Little Zebras) for their black and white striped kit, Udinese have spent the majority of their history in Italy’s top flight.
Following a tumultuous period which saw the club relegated to Serie B and promoted back on three occasions from 1987 and 1995, they have firmly established themselves as a Serie A entity for the past 27 years.
While the Friulian side finished third in 1998 and 2012 and qualified for the Champions League and Europa League on a number of occasions, they narrowly avoided relegation by a single point in 2016 and have finished in the lower half of the table in the last nine seasons.
A run of one win in 13 games last season led to the dismissal of manager Luca Gotti in December. He was replaced by Gabriele Cioffi on an interim basis and while the ex-Crawley Town boss was denied a win against eventual champions AC Milan by a stoppage-time equaliser in his first match in charge, he steered them to a comfortable 12th place finish.
Meet the new boss
Following Cioffi’s departure at the end of last season, Udinese appointed Andrea Sottil who played 115 games for the club from 1999 to 2003. The former defender may well remember his team’s last meeting with Chelsea as he was sent off along with Hasselbaink after the pair were involved in an off-the-ball clash late in the game.
A member of Udinese’s Intertoto Cup-winning side in 2000, Solliti played over 400 games during his playing career which included spells at Torino, Atalanta and Fiorentina, where he won the 1996 Coppa Italia.
Since he retired in 2011, he has managed several clubs in Italy’s lower divisions and is something of a survival specialist after helping Pescara and Ascoil avoid relegation from Serie B. The 48-year-old guided Ascoli to sixth place in the second tier last season before returning to Udinese for his first appointment as a Serie A coach.
Udinese’s main men
The player Chelsea fans may be most familiar with in the Udinese squad is Spanish forward Gerard Deulofeu who joined the club in 2020 after spells at Barcelona, Everton and Watford. The 28-year-old was their leading scorer last season with 13 goals.
Udinese and Watford are both owned by members of the Pozzo family and there are other ex-Hornets now playing for the Little Zebras. They include Argentinian forward Roberto Pereyra who is in his second spell in Udine after four seasons at Vicarage Road and Morocco international forward Adam Musina who recently made the switch after four years in England.
Club captain Bram Nuytinck has established himself in the heart of defence at Udinese since he arrived from Anderlecht in 2017. The Dutchman is usually partnered by Brazilian centre-back Rodrigo Becao who may sit out the game after undergoing a procedure on a fractured nasal bone.
In addition to Musina, other newcomers who may be involved against the Blues include Slovenia international midfelder Sandi Lovric who was signed from Swiss side Lugano and Ireland U-21 right-back Festy Ebosele who arrived from Derby County.
While Chelsea flew across the Atlantic Ocean to prepare for the new season, Udinese made a short trek to southern Austria for a two-week training camp at Lienz which included friendlies against German sides Union Berlin and Bayer Leverkusen, Cypriot club Pafos and the Qatar national team.
An award-winning venue
While this week’s game takes place at the same location as Chelsea’s last meeting with Udinese, the Dacia Arena looks very different from the venue where we played in 2001.
Built in 1976, the Stadio Friuli hosted three games during the 1990 World Cup involving Spain, Uruguay and South Korea when it had a capacity of 36,000. However, it underwent a major re-modelling from 2013 to 2016 when the athletics track was removed and three of the stands were demolished and rebuilt closer to the pitch to create a more compact 25,000-seat ground.
Although a Romanian car manufacturer has the naming rights for the stadium, the Dacia Arena is considered one of Italy’s most environmentally friendly facilities, utilising energy from renewable sources or gas with carbon offsetting.
It also has an excellent playing surface with the club receiving Serie A’s Most Valuable Field award for the 2021/22 season.
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