Richard Heathcote/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images
That summer, it felt to David Dein as if he — as if English soccer as a whole — was under attack. Roman Abramovich, an enigmatic Russian billionaire, had swept into Chelsea in June 2003 and laid waste to the transfer market, lavishing vast sums on what seemed like any and every elite player he could get his hands on.
Nobody could compete, and scarcely anyone could resist. Hernan Crespo came in from Inter Milan and Adrian Mutu from Parma; Joe Cole from West Ham and Juan Sebastian Veron from Manchester United arrived on the same day.