Matics Second Coming at Chelsea, by way of Jesus, proves Divine Inspiration from Mourinho Tim Sherwood might wish to slap Jorge Jesus, but the second coming of Nemanja Matic must have convinced Chelsea’s accountants that the man with the provocative fingers knows what he’s doing. After all, it was Benfica’s enigmatic manager - and his videos of Javi Garcia – who transformed Matic from the boy Chelsea virtually gave away in 2011 to a man worth the £21million it cost to re-sign him in January. At Chelsea, in the space of 10 performances, that value has surely increased again. The Serbian was this week weighing up that peculiar journey from Chelsea to Benfica to Chelsea at Kingsmeadow Stadium, the humble home of AFC Wimbledon. On Saturday, he will most likely run out at Villa Park against Aston Villa, playing for a manager he describes as ‘probably the best in the world’ and back in the ‘dream’. His family loved life in Portugal, but it took him one minute to make the decision that left his wife and son in tears. ‘I had no doubts about coming back,’ Matic says. ‘I spoke with my agent for one minute and that was it. To be honest, I didn’t know what my contract was going to be. I just said, “OK, I will go there and after we will see”. We made a deal and I am happy. ‘You ask me about money. For me, I said I want to improve, to play good football in a good league. The money is not the most important thing.’ But money is important in this of all deals, a transfer from Benfica for £21m having once been the spare change added to a £21m cheque to sign David Luiz from Portugal. On the surface it’s a remarkable loss on a player who cost £1.5m when Chelsea first bought him from MFK Kosice of Slovakia in 2009; in reality that £21m appears to be the best of the £106m spent on new signings since last summer. Matic, 25, is the big man making a huge impact, a 6ft 4in defensive midfielder who can glide and tackle, bruise and think. His passes go forward. Fans call him The Beast – ‘It’s a good nickname to have,’ he says – but he is about so much more than strength. He ran 12km in the 4-0 rout of Tottenham and outplayed Manchester City’s Yaya Toure on February 3. He has an attacker’s incisiveness and a defender’s industry. But that wasn’t always the case. ‘I came to Chelsea (the first time) from a small Slovakian club, Kosice, and for me this was like a dream,’ says Matic, speaking at the launch of the PUMA evoPOWER 1 football boots. ‘From a Slovakian team to the Premier League is not easy. I think I am maybe the first to do this because normally to Chelsea, players come from Holland, Italy, Spain, Portugal. ‘For me it was like a dream. But I was very young - 21 – and in my position at that time were big players like Michael Ballack, Frank Lampard, Michael Essien, who was in the best moment of his career. ‘I came here injured and I was out for four months so it was difficult for me.’ Like so many young players at Chelsea, he struggled to get games - only three - and after a year he was loaned to Vitesse Arnhem. In January 2011, Chelsea approached Benfica to sign Luiz, and Matic was sent to Portugal from Holland as a makeweight in the deal. That’s where he met the man who riled Tottenham’s coach so much this week. ‘Tactically, I am much better because I worked a lot at Benfica,’ he says. ‘When I came to Benfica, I played like a number 10 in the team. The manager, Jorge Jesus, told me “You are going to play like a defensive midfielder”. ‘I worked every day tactically with him to improve. After training, I stayed every day to do physical work in the gym as well. ‘Jorge Jesus believed in my quality and kept saying, “Just do what I ask and slowly you will play better”. I did. I watched some players to see how they moved. He showed me a lot of Javi Garcia (now at Manchester City) because he played at Benfica with me at that time.’ He won the league cup in Portugal and last season was named the Primeira Liga’s player of the year. Chelsea came calling and he made his fifth move in seven years, leaving behind his apartment near Cascais. ‘My wife and a three-year-old son cried when we left Portugal,’ he says. Chelsea are laughing now.
Posted on: Sat, 15 Mar 2014 03:35:41 +0000
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