2013: Bayern v Chelsea
Thursday, May 2, 2013
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FC Bayern München and Chelsea FC will compete for the 2013 UEFA Super Cup at the Eden Stadium in Prague from 20.45CET on Friday 30 August.
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FC Bayern München and Chelsea FC will compete for the 2013 UEFA Super Cup, taking place at the Eden Stadium in Prague for the first time at 20.45CET on Friday 30 August.
After 15 editions at AS Monaco FC's Stade Louis II between 1998 and 2012, the venue for the annual meeting of the UEFA Champions League and UEFA Europa League winners will change every year. The Czech capital has been given the first honour, while Wales' Cardiff City Stadium and the Mikheil Meskhi Stadium in Tbilisi play host in 2014 and 2015, respectively.
Coincidentally, Chelsea won the inaugural Monaco fixture, beating Real Madrid CF 1-0 as UEFA Cup Winners' Cup holders. This time, they booked a trip to Prague after ousting SL Benfica 2-1 in the UEFA Europa League showpiece. Bayern then overcame Borussia Dortmund by the same scoreline in the UEFA Champions League final to earn a rematch against the team who beat them to claim the Europan Cup in Munich 12 months earlier.
The west London club subsequently lost 4-1 to Club Atlético de Madrid in the last of the Monaco curtain-raisers, the biggest margin of victory in a one-off UEFA Super Cup.
Bayern, by contrast, have a unique record of losing all three of their appearances. In 1975, they lost 1-0 at home and 2-0 away against FC Dynamo Kyiv (the second leg watched by a record 110,000). The following year, the Bavarians edged out RSC Anderlecht 2-1 in Munich only to succumb 4-1 in Brussels. In their sole Monaco appearance in 2001, Bayern fell 3-2 to Liverpool FC.
FC Barcelona have tasted defeat in the UEFA Super Cup once more than Bayern, yet they can boast four triumphs, just one shy of AC Milan's tally. And while English teams have a record of seven wins and seven losses, German clubs have come unstuck in all seven UEFA Super Cup outings.
Unusually, both teams will contest the UEFA Super Cup under new management, with the retiring Jupp Heynckes making way for Pep Guardiola and Rafael Benítez ending his interim spell at Chelsea. This last occurred in 2004 when Benítez left Valencia CF for Liverpool FC and José Mourinho swapped FC Porto for Chelsea, leaving Claudio Ranieri and Victor Fernández in respective charge.
Valencia prevailed that year, and Atlético's 2012 success means UEFA Cup/UEFA Europa League winners lead UEFA Champions League holders 7-6 since the end of the UEFA Cup Winners' Cup (whose holders won 12 out of 25 encounters with European Cup winners). Since Porto's 2003 loss to AC Milan as UEFA Cup holders, the UEFA Super Cup winners have alternated annually between the two competitions.