In early March, Chelsea Football Club was looking like a shadow of its former self, with one win in their last seven matches.
They sat fifth in the English Premier League, and were looking at a 3-1 deficit against Napoli in the round of sixteen of the prestigious UEFA Champions League.
Owner Roman Abramovich swung the axe and highly-rated manager Andre Villas Boas was sacked just eight months after being given the job.
Assistant coach Roberto Di Matteo took over on an interim basis until the end of the season, and Abramovich was then expected to open his chequebook and sign another of the world’s high profile coaches at season’s end.
But now, not even two months since been given the job, Di Matteo is looking every bit a permanent Chelsea manager.
He has won 10 of his first 13 matches. Chelsea are in the final of the FA Cup, only a win away from fourth place in the Premier League and are holding a 1-0 advantage over Barcelona going into the second leg of their Champions League semi-final.
Di Matteo saw what had not worked under the Villas Boas regime and has now taken control.
He has retuned proven players like Frank Lampard and Didier Drogba to the starting line-up while he is not afraid to leave Fernando Torres on the bench.
The defence is structured and Di Matteo is putting the right team on the field in a 4-2-3-1 formation rather than Villas Boas’ preferred 4-3-3 formation.
His first major challenge was to somehow drag Chelsea back from being totally outplayed by an impressive Napoli team in the Champions League round of sixteen first leg. He did so in style, with Chelsea winning 4-1.
No-one had expected Chelsea to make it through the round of sixteen but after defeating Benfica in the quarter finals they outclassed Barcelona to take a 1-0 advantage to Spain for the second leg.
Di Matteo must take the credit for this. While Villas Boas seemed to pamper to Abramovich and give game time to the terribly out of form Fernando Torres, Di Matteo has returned Drogba to the starting line-up.
It is no coincidence that the 34-year-old Ivorian striker opened the scoring against Napoli and scored the crucial goal against defending champions Barcelona.
Frank Lampard too is proving his class with his strike in their FA Cup semi-final win over Tottenham while also dominating play against Barca. John Obi Mikel, David Luiz, Gary Cahill and Salomon Kalou are just a few others who have visibly improved.
It would be quite ironic if it was Di Matteo who gave Abramovich the Champion’s League glory he craves while all his previous, more illustrious managers failed in Europe’s most prized competition.
A lot can happen in over the next month though.
Failure in the Champion’s League, defeat to Liverpool in the FA Cup final and missing out on fourth spot in the Premier League will mean the season will be seen as a disaster and Di Matteo will surely miss out on the top job.
But for now, with a team in harmony and in form it is not absurd to think that Di Matteo could finish the season with a couple of major trophies and a job title that has the word interim removed from the front.
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