Before the end of the winter window, Zenit St. Petersburg officially announced a two-and-a-half-year contract with Chelsea's Serbian defender Branislav Ivanovic, a veteran who is about to turn 33 and end his nine-year career at Stamford Bridge.
In his 10 seasons with Chelsea, Ivan made a total of 376 appearances for the team, scoring 34 goals, and he also helped the team win 2 Premier League titles, 3 FA Cup titles, 1 League Cup, 1 Champions League and 1 Europa League; he was also selected for the Premier League Team of the Year twice and the Champions League Team of the Year once. Regarding Ivanovic's departure, the Blues' official website wrote that he was a "Serbian-born, Chelsea-made" Blues legend.
Ivan came with the winter window too. In January 2008, Chelsea signed him from Lokomotiv Moscow for around £9.7 million, setting a transfer fee record for Russian football at the time, before he replaced the departing Glenn Johnson and put on the Blues' No. 2 shirt.
After nine years with the Blues, the Serb has won almost every championship with the team, including consecutive trophies in European competitions. The 2013/14 season was his peak, and not only did he squeeze out all the right-wing contenders, forcing Azpilicueta to use his back foot to seek development on the left, but ashley Cole began to taste the bench. In the 2014/15 season when Chelsea won the Premier League title, Ivan was also one of the six Blues players who were shortlisted for the best list of the players' union at the end of the season.
Since the two headers killed Liverpool, Ivan has shown the characteristics of a knife guard, and the Blues' career has scored one goal in about 10 games, which is invaluable as a defender. After playing at right-back, the number of goals scored was twice that of the previous center-back. Ivan played as a striker in his youth team, which allowed him to train an intuition to score goals. He believes the experience helped him "feel how the ball bounces or falls when turned.""
In the 2012/13 Europa League final, Ivan scored a head-to-head match against Benfica to help Chelsea win 2–1, a goal that was the most important goal of his Blues career and was named the best player in the final. Ivan's composure as a defender in the face of scoring opportunities inside and outside the opposition penalty area is invaluable. When playing for the Blues, his important goals were scored more than once, which was remarkable.
In 2014, his premier league goal away to Manchester City helped Chelsea win, making the Blues the first Premier League team in four years to prevent City from scoring at home. In 2015, he made a header against Liverpool in the semi-finals of the League Cup to reserve a place in the final for the team. The Chelsea defender is strong in long-range shots, with more than a third of the goals coming from fixed points. Headers are a must-have weapon, and sometimes his footwork in sports combat can mislead the Blues No. 2 as a striker.
In the 2012 Champions League final, Ivan was suspended for no reason, which was his biggest regret. However, the Blues finally held up the big ear cup with his name on it. After losing and changing coaches in the group stage, Di Matteo's first game on the job was the second leg of the group qualifying match against Napoli. Opposing striker Cavani even taunted Ivanovic before the game, "If he hadn't bumped into me in the back, I might not have been able to score the ball [in the first leg]." Enraged, Ivan later did something that Cavani regretted.
With goals from Drogba and Terry drawing the aggregate and Inler helping the visiting team to overtake again, Serbian defenders showed their heroic qualities: seizing corner kicks to create penalties, Lampard lived up to expectations, and Chelsea returned to the same starting point with their opponents. In extra time, Ivan ghostly entered the box and received a pass from Drogba to push it with his feet, announcing the end of Napoli's Champions League journey and foreshadowing the undead Blues to embark on the path of Nirvana.
In his best years, he was comparable to the best right-backs in the world, including Bayern captain Ram, Real Madrid's Carvajal, Manchester City's Sabaleta and Barcelona's Alves. It is only because Ivan's style is unpretentious that he missed many opportunities to be spotted in the spotlight.
But his blood-stained boots will not be forgotten. It was the League Cup semi-final match against the Reds two years ago. After the match in which the Blues were sent to the Wembley final with a single goal, the Serbian's right boot was stained with blood, and it turned out that in a fiery red-and-blue showdown, he had endured the severe pain of a foot injury for a long time in the game. When manager Jose Mourinho learned about it, he said that Ivan's blood boots should be sent to the Chelsea Academy as a souvenir, as the best example of how young players can stand on the highest competitive stage through perseverance.
"Is he one of the best signings for the club? I think so," Mourinho once told the media: "Ivan has made a fantastic contribution to this club. He is a competitive beast with a big heart. What really matters is that a club needs him and players like Terry and Cahill. You can't do anything without them. A team needs an artist like Hazard and a defender like Ivanovic. Talent needs to be well combined and composed to form a team. ”
The reason why Mo Shuai is so highly recognized is not because ivan can score many goals. The role of a defender, the Serbs have never missed during the Blues' long peak years. Iron guard Ivan doesn't average many tackles per game because opposing wingers are used to avoiding going head-to-head with him. Because of his one-on-one and defensive skills, Sterling once called Ivan the toughest opponent he ever encountered, "The opponent I feel most terrible about is Ivanovic, he doesn't play dirty, but he's like a tank!" The body is huge, the center of gravity is very low, like a real tank! Ivan's success rate is extremely high in the defender group. He took full advantage of his personal talents of strength, height and speed, so he won air confrontations more times per game than his contemporaries. Ivan's most outstanding statistic is his high number of clearances, which shows that the tall defender actually has excellent reading ability to read the game and can sniff out the dangers in advance, which is undoubtedly crucial for the heavily defended Chelsea.
Arsenal defender Piré made an objective assessment of Ivan's historical position in the right-back group in 2015, "He is the best defender in the Premier League, and perhaps in Europe." I don't quite understand why not so many people seem to pay attention to him. He performed perfectly in the defensive line, physically strong, fast, skilled, and did not have the upper hand in the scramble for the header, which was an all-rounder. ”
The decline in form over the past two seasons is undoubtedly the reason why Ivan has not been able to continue his career at the Bridge. Last season's Champions League against Porto condensed the Serbian's poor form throughout the season. He played 90 minutes, 10 pass errors, 10 attempts to tackle only 1 time, all failed in the air battle, and the cross was also 0 success, which was only a statistical performance; in Chelsea's two goals conceded, Ivan could not escape responsibility.
Ivan's sluggish athletic form last season was evident from his repeated surprises against Swansay in the first round of the league against Montero. In the first half, he became the opponent's favorite explosive Blues weakness. But the Serbian's poor performance last season was not an isolated case, and in that enigmatic season, the Blues' overall decline in form. Ivan's weaknesses are exposed so obviously, which is also related to his love of assists. However, the loss of Terry and Nemanja Matic has left Ivan with an assist forward behind a defensive valve, and after the winger in front of him changed from Willian to the unsatisfactory Pedro, the Serbian often defended with two fists and four hands.
After starting against Arsenal in September this season, Ivan has never made a league start again. Conte's rectification from then on involved a lot of the defensive line, Terry then lost his main position, and Cahill's starting opportunities were once in jeopardy. By changing the three centre-backs, the Blues were reborn. Unfortunately, at the age of 32, Ivan had his best Blues years.