Alvaro Morata personifies Antonio Conte’s new Chelsea
Alvaro Morata’s style of play and brand of continental professionalism is exactly the sort of style and thought that Antonio Conte is trying to bring to Chelsea after years of dressing room discord.
Chelsea FC have for years been one of the most influential and difficult dressing rooms to manage in not only the Premier League but Europe. Countless fantastic managers have come to ply their trade at Stamford Bridge and left unable to simply conquer the dressing room.
Players like John Terry, Frank Lampard, Didier Drogba and Michael Ballack for a very long time held sway over the decision-making at Stamford Bridge. That’s exactly the sort of thing that has also held the club back.
The ups and downs and drama at Stamford Bridge are the sort of thing that stop Chelsea becoming a Manchester United or a Real Madrid or a Juventus. Players come and go and that’s why having them be the influential members and decision makes are at a club doesn’t work. It works in the short-term, sometimes, but in the end a club needs 20-30 years of success to be a giant. Players except for the likes of Giggs, Raul, Maldini, Zanetti, Del Piero and Iniesta don’t last that long.
What you’ll notice though is that each of those named above is a name associated with a giant of the European game. United, Real, Milan, Inter, Juventus and Barcelona all are clubs where the weight and traditions of the club necessitate a certain brand of professionalism that has for too long been missing at Chelsea. It’s that exact brand however that Conte is trying to establish to build Chelsea for the long-term.
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Chelsea are no longer pursuing the title just today or tomorrow but six years and ten years from now. In order to do that Chelsea need to succeed at creating a professional culture not a personal one. Players at Chelsea have for too long been able to care more about themselves than their club and that’s not how success and legendary history are built.
Alvaro Morata perfectly encapsulates this. He was trained at Real Madrid and Juventus and it shows. His attitude and approach to not only training but the public life that comes with being a professional footballer is excellent. He’s fantastic in press conferences and handles himself phenomenally on the pitch. To go with being a remarkably complete center forward he’s a good man off the pitch as well.
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He’s exactly the difference that Chelsea needed from Diego Costa who himself personified in many ways what was wrong with the upstart Chelsea that the club now must leave behind to truly grow. A decade ago that was the right attitude but now Chelsea are giants it’s time they start behaving like it. Alvaro Morata and Antonio Conte both know how to do this and hopefully they are allowed to succeed in it.