Ruud Gullit at Chelsea: From giggles to mirth

By Vic Mills

LONDON (JP): The immediate reaction on hearing that Chelsea had signed Ruud Gullit, was of a partnership to savor, the ultimate dream ticket--Hoddle & Gullit. If only the former had a year or two left in his legs.

Still, Gullit in the Premiership was a coup to more than rival Klinsmann's year at Spurs...and Chelsea has the flying Dutchman for two whole seasons.

It was then that wonderment turned to amusement, then to giggles and finally to unconcealed mirth.

For if Hoddle and Gullit are the dream ticket, what are we to make of Gullit and Dennis Wise? Nightmare on the King's Road? Yes, curiously enough, of the many confrontations of the new football seasons in England, one of the most eagerly awaited is that which pits teammate against teammate.

For it will not have escaped the more discerning supporter that, at this time Chelsea were completing the signing of football's Mr. Sophistication, Wise was in the midst of a successful appeal against the charge of assaulting a London cab driver.

The initial meeting between the two conjured up all manner of mayhem. Hair freshly cropped, stubble bristling, the diminutive Wise (an ill choice of surname) cut a serious figure against the multi-lingual, sharp-suited, dreadlocked cavalier of the world game.

An honors graduate of the "Vincent Jones School of Footballing Etiquette", it was debatable whether Wise would opt for a handshake, "Glasgow kiss" or two-footed tackle. Why change the habits of a lifetime?

On the positive side, it would do Gullit no harm to sample an early taste of life in the Premiership, albeit from a club colleague.

Well may blue be the color, as Chelsea's faithful are apt to chant, but 90 minutes against Wimbledon on a chill November afternoon, and blue will soon turn to black and blue!

Cynicism, crudeness

In his favor, Gullit has spent much of the recent past playing in the very league, Serie A, that put the two Cs -- cynicism and crudeness--into soccer. And six seasons is an awful lot of shirt- pulling, body-checking, elbowing and spitting...even for a Dutchman.

Of course, in comparison to Italy, Gullit may see his time in England as something of a respite, a breath of fresh air, the chance to idle away his last year in the game. The particular pension scheme on offer, a modest Netherlands Guilders 15,000 a week.

A point that will have been thoroughly aired among the bars and bistros of the King's Road. Indeed, can Gullit from sweeper or libero provide value for money? Or would not his talents, the deadliest of marksmen for AC Milan and Sampdoria, be better employed in attack?

The deal is for him to play libero, a position never fully understood or utilized in the English game.

Prince of the position--and this goes back some 30 years--was Der Kaiser himself, Franz Backenbauer. It was his astute, gliding forays from defense to attack that made Bayern Munich and West Germany such a force in the early 1970s.

Ironically, Chelsea's last sweeper was Hoddle himself. A position he played with distinction: his fore, that of the long ball out of defense.

Of his plans for Gullit, he will be keen for the Dutchman to venture forward more frequently, in the style of Backenbauer, and hopefully with the same result.

Whatever the outcome, the likelihood is, with the prospect of Gullit in full flow, that Stamford Bridge will be the place to be this autumn.