The Blues’ recent road form in Europe’s premier club tournament has been very good with last season’s 1-0 loss at Juventus the only defeat we have suffered in our last 11 away matches.

However, when you only consider games against new opponents in the competition, you have to go back all the way to November 2013 to find our last setback when we lost 1-0 at Basel, just a few months after we had beaten them in both legs of the Europa League semi-finals.

Since that defeat in Switzerland nine years ago, Chelsea have visited 13 teams in the Champions League for the first time and avoided defeat on every occasion with nine games ending in victory.

This streak began in September 2014 when we won 1-0 at Sporting Lisbon thanks to a goal by former Benfica midfielder Nemanja Matic and it continued later in that campaign when we drew 1-1 in Slovenia against Maribor.

Our campaign the following season also saw us facing two fresh opponents in the group stage. We were unable to find a way through Dynamo Kiev’s defence in a goalless draw in Ukraine but enjoyed a much more productive outing in Israel as goals by Gary Cahill, Willian, Oscar and Kurt Zouma gave us an emphatic 4-0 win over Maccabi Tel Aviv.

The scoreline was repeated when we made our longest ever away trip in the Champions League – a 4,000-kilometre trek to Azerbaijan – to face Qarabag in November 2017. The Azeri side had drawn twice with Atletico Madrid during the group stage but two goals by Willian and a penalty each by Eden Hazard and Cesc Fabregas sealed an impressive victory at the Olympic Stadium in Baku where we would net another four goals against Arsenal in the Europa Cup final 18 months later.

The 2019/20 campaign featured hard-fought away wins against new opponents in France and the Netherlands. At the Stade Pierre-Mauroy, the Blues bounced back from an opening home loss to Valencia to beat Lille 2-1 with Willian netting the winner 12 minutes from time after Tammy Abraham’s opener had been cancelled out by Victor Osimhen.

We left things even later at the Johan Cruyff Arena in Amsterdam with Michy Batshuayi’s 86th minute strike giving us an invaluable 1-0 win over Ajax.

All three teams we faced in the group stage the following season were new opponents and while we drew two home matches, we turned on the style on the road, winning all three games. A 2-1 victory in France against Rennes was secured by a stoppage-time header by Olivier Giroud while the Blues ran riot in Russia and Spain, netting four unanswered goals against Krasnodar and Sevilla to top the group.

Wins against Atletico Madrid and Porto saw us progress to the semi-finals where we came up against Real Madrid, a team we had beaten previously in Cup Winners’ Cup and Super Cup finals but never met before in the Champions League. The match at the Alfredo Di Stefano Stadium saw Christian Pulisic’s well taken opener cancelled out by Karim Benzema in a 1-1 draw but the Blues would advance to the final after a 2-0 win in the return game at Stamford Bridge.

Last season’s group stage featured first-ever ever trips to northern outposts in Sweden and Russia. Our game against Malmo, a team we had previously met in the Europa League in 2019, was decided by a lone Hakim Ziyech strike while our visit to Zenit Saint Petersburg produced an eventful 3-3 draw with Timo Werner netting two goals including our fastest ever Champions League strike after 83 seconds.

With the unbeaten streak against new Champions League opponents now standing at 13 matches, the Blues will try to extend that impressive record in Zagreb before visiting Austrian side RB Salzburg later in this campaign.