What Happened To Roberto Di Matteo After Winning The Champions League with Chelsea?

19th May 2012. Munich, Germany. 120minutes of football has just been played in Chelsea’s only second ever Champions League Final. The score still at 1-1, penalties will decide the match. Didier Drogba goes up to take the 5th penalty for Chelsea with the score at 3-3. If he misses, the penalty shootout will go to sudden death. If he scores, him and the rest of the Chelsea team will become legends and live on in the history of Chelsea FC.

He Scored.

That season started with Andre Villas-Boas as Chelsea manager, a fresh appointment in the summer of 2011. He came from Porto, much similar to previously legendary Chelsea manager Jose Mourinho. Big things were expected of him, and he hired ex-Chelsea player Roberto Di Matteo as his assistant. He was sacked after a poor showing in the league with Chelsea pretty much out of the race for the Champions League for the next season. His assistant, Di Matteo, was appointed until the end of the season.

Di Matteo was already a manager previously to his role at Chelsea. As a player he was forced to retire early, while at Chelsea in 2001, due to a triple leg fracture sustained in a UEFA Cup tie. He spoke about his early retirement and how he looks after his leg with physiotherapy while on the show MTV Cribs which aired in June 2005. He was an Italy international with 34 caps, and until 2009 held the record for the fastest goal in a Wembley FA Cup final. His retirement at 31 meant that when he took over as MK Dons manager in 2008, he was still fairly young for a manager.

Di Matteo helped guide MK Dons to a 3rd place finish that season in League One. They lost in the playoffs to Scunthorpe on penalties. That season West Brom were relegated from the Premier League and wanted a young up-and-coming manager to takeover the following season, so Di Matteo left MK Dons to take the job. The team finished that next season in 2nd place securing automatic promotion back to the Premier League. They even made a good start to the next campaign in the Premier League with Di Matteo winning the Manager of the Month award for September, but form dipped not long after and he was sacked in February.

On appointment as Chelsea Caretaker Manager, Di Matteo opted for a more defensive style of play. They picked up results in the FA Cup and Champions League, overturning a 3-1 deficit to Napoli left behind by former manager Villas-Boas. Chelsea under Di Matteo made it to the Champions League semi-final and were drawn against Barcelona. The first leg at home ended 1-0 to Chelsea, meaning the second leg in Barcelona Chelsea only needed a draw to go through. In the first half, captain centre-back John Terry was sent off, meaning Chelsea had to somehow find a way through the game. It ended 2-2 with Fernando Torres scoring one of the most famous Champions League goals of all time, sending Chelsea to the Champions League final again. In between that game and the Champions League final, Di Matteo also lead Chelsea to a victory in the FA Cup, defeating Liverpool 2-1 in the Final.

So whatever happened to Roberto Di Matteo after winning the Champions League?

After the Champions League triumph, Roberto Di Matteo was appointment Chelsea manager permanently. He was given a 2 year contract as a reward for such a successful campaign the year prior. The season didn’t start well, losing in both the Community Shield and European Super Cup. The league form however, was good, The Champions League winners didn’t have the best form in that seasons competition though. They lost to Shakhtar and drew with Juventus at home, but a 3-0 loss to Juventus with a game remaining all but knocked them out of the competition. As with such, like many Chelsea managers before him, he was sacked.

Di Matteo had a year out from football after, but was appointment Schalke’s manager in 2014. In his first managerial role outside of England, he had some good moments, most notably beating Real Madrid 4-3 in Madrid, but ultimately didn’t achieve expectations. He resigned from the club at the end of the season after missing out on qualification for the next seasons Champions League.

A year later, Roberto Di Matteo was appointed Aston Villa manager. Aston Villa had just been relegated from the Premier League, so it was hoped Di Matteo could replicate the successes he achieved a few years earlier at Aston Villa’s rivals, West Brom. That didn’t happen though, and so following a disappointing run of results in the league, Di Matteo was sacked by Aston Villa in October 2016.

That was the last job Di Matteo had in management. It’s unclear whether he’ll ever return to management or football in general, but at the time of writing, it’s been 6 years since he had a job, so it seems unlikely. He remains the only caretaker manager to ever win the Champions League, but will go down in history as the first Chelsea manager to do so.