NOTTINGHAM — At the final whistle on the final day of the season Chelsea’s players rushed all over the pitch at Nottingham Forest’s City Ground and hugged one another as they’d won 1-0 to qualify for the Champions League. The coaching staff spun around in a circle doing a little jig of celebration on the sidelines. The Chelsea fans in the away end went wild.
It was mission accomplished for Enzo Maresca and his staff, and in his first season in charge the Italian coach had taken Chelsea back to the Champions League after a two-year hiatus from Europe’s elite club competition.