Ghostbuster: Chelsea's John Terry will take penalty at ground where he missed THAT European Cup-winning spot-kick
Ghostbuster: Chelsea's John Terry will take penalty at ground where he missed THAT European Cup-winning spot-kick
Blues face Rubin Kazan in Europa League at Moscow's Luzhniki
Stadium five years on from tear-jerking shoot-out loss to Manchester
United
Lost, like tears in rain: Despair for Terry after failing to make Chelsea champions of Europe
Getty
From Martin Lipton in Moscow
Rafa Benitez is ready to ask John Terry to exorcise his Moscow ghosts - and go through the agony of a shoot-out penalty.
Blues
skipper Terry will return to the Chelsea side for their Europa League
quarter-final second leg against Rubin Kazan in the same Luzhniki
Stadium where he suffered his greatest personal anguish.
Just
under five years ago, Terry stepped up to take the spot-kick which would
have seen off Manchester United and won the Champions League.
Instead,
he lost his footing, watched in disbelief as his shot struck the
outside of Edwin Van Der Sar's post and was left destitute by Nicolas
Anelka's decisive miss minutes later.
Terry's has only taken one competitive penalty since - scoring in a Carling Cup victory over Fulham last season.
And with the possibility of a shoot-out to decide who makes the last four should Kazan overturn a 3-1 first leg deficit, Benitez is prepared to urge the captain to confront his inner demons.
Benitez
said: "If it is necessary, John will take one. It depends how many
players you have. The main thing is that they want to do it.
"You cannot just say, 'You and you and you'. The first thing, what matters, is that they have to be convinced they can score.
"We are confident we will not need penalties. But if we do need penalties, we have enough experience and quality."
Benitez
added: "I can remember the 2008 Champions League Final, but I don't
want to talk too much about that. It's not our problem now. Our problem
now is Rubin Kazan.
"I don't want to lose the focus. It is another
competition, in another time. Hopefully we can do well and everybody
will not think too much about the past.
"Everybody will have bad memories but for us it is about the future."
While
the spectre of Moscow will always cause Chelsea fans to shudder,
Benitez is more concerned by the triple threat of a plastic pitch, a
surreal atmosphere created by an expected crowd of barely 10,000
rattling about in an 80,000-capacity stadium and complacency after the
3-1 first leg win. The Blues'
boss - likely to rest Juan Mata and Eden Hazard ahead of Sunday's FA
Cup semi-final against Manchester City - said: "It will be a little
strange. Sunday best: Chelsea are set to rest Hazard and Mata for Wembley
Clive Rose
"We will not get the extra motivation you normally get from a
big, full, stadium. In this sort of situation the players can be too
relaxed and go out there without the proper approach.
"So we have
to send a message across to our players and then hopefully at the
beginning of the game they will realise they need to be concentrated.
"But after what happened for Tottenham at Inter and us against Sparta Prague, they have been warned."
Terry
broke down in training on a previous plastic pitch at the Luzhniki on
the eve of England's crucial Euro 2008 qualifier against Russia.
Benitez admitted: "We have to adapt to the pitch, although the new generation of synthetic pitches are better."
Ryan
Bertrand has missed the trip to Russia due to illness. Gary
Cahill (knee) and Ashley Cole (hamstring) were already ruled out, as are
long-term absentee Oriol Romeu (knee) and cup-tied striker Demba Ba.
Bertrand's absence means young Dutchman Nathan Ake or experienced Portuguese full-back Paulo Ferreira could start.
After
failing to score with any of his first 15 shots at goal (excluding
blocked efforts) in the Europa League, Chelsea's Fernando Torres has
scored with three of his last seven (43%). Rubin's Salomon
Rondon has scored five goals in the Europa League this season - and
attempted more shots (30) than any other player in the competition.
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