Last summer, when Todd Boehly pulled out the checkbook and took over the new Chelsea property, he watched hundreds of football matches. It was a sport that until then had not interested him much. But, of course, you had to be aware of such a high investment. By studying the games, he wanted not only to catch up on football, but also to see if, in his opinion, it could be as predictable as baseball (he is also part owner of the MLB Dodgers). Well, this Wednesday at the end of lunch between the Boehly directives, seeing a Sky Sports microphone, he dared to make a forecast. He was not diplomatic or restrained. Quite the contrary. Neither short nor lazy, he blurted out: "We are going to win 3-0." His phrase was reminiscent of the one that the then president of Real Madrid, Vicente Boluda, pronounced on his day, when he assured that the whites were going to "squirt" Liverpool. It was another Madrid, much less reliable than this one in the Champions League, and the one that ended up humiliated was the white team.
Boehly's divining skills were blown up just after twenty minutes into the game. If he had placed any money on bets, he had just lost it just at the moment Benzema opened the scoring.
Although for tickets it will not be. This season Chelsea has spent almost 700 million euros. Boehly continues to test roulette, which before, with Roman Abramovich at the helm, was Russian and now has a US patent. He is going for the third manager of the campaign and navigating no man's land in the Premier League. A nonsense although he has the comeback attempt in the continental return at Stamford Bridge. The latest cartridge for Chelsea and for an owner who, in American sports lingo that he undoubtedly knows better, would be labeled a rookie. But not the best.
