Chelsea, Inter, AC Milan, Leicester City and Ajax: Kitchee in good company in fall from grace

Kitchee have been the dominant force in Hong Kong football for the better past of a decade, but a season that promised much has gone up in smoke in just two weeks. Last term’s treble winners are set to finish the campaign without the Premier League title or FA Cup for the first time since 2016, after defeats by Eastern. February’s Senior Shield success provided some relief, while the poorly regarded Sapling Cup could yet add another piece of silverware when Kitchee face BC Rangers in Wednesday’s final. Still, there is no escaping the implosion at the city’s biggest club, even if president Ken Ng-kin said missing Asian football next season was “not the end of the world”. He was, perhaps, drawing on the experiences of more illustrious clubs whose empires crumbled almost overnight. AC Milan 1996-97 Champions in 1996, their fourth title in five seasons, the roof fell in on the Rossoneri after head coach Fabio Capello’s summer exit for Real Madrid. Capello lost only three Serie A matches in his final season at the San Siro, with Milan scoring 60 goals and conceding just 24, in 34 matches. Oscar Tabarez, who would lead his native Uruguay to the 2010 World Cup semi-finals, succeeded Capello for a doomed reign. Tabarez had George Weah, the reigning world footballer of the year, up front, a midfield featuring Marcel Desailly, and Paolo Maldini and Franco Baresi in defence as well as Roberto Baggio. Milan were hopeless nonetheless, winning only four of their opening 11 league games, and tumbling out of a Champions League group featuring Porto, Rosenborg and IFK Gothenburg. Arrigo Sacchi replaced Tabarez in December, and Milan limped to an 11th-placed finish, only six points clear of relegation. Inter Milan, 2011-12 Inter’s fabled 2009-10 team suffered death by a thousand cuts, after losing treble-winning mastermind Jose Mourinho to perennial managerial thieves Real Madrid. Rafa Benitez and Leonardo both had time in charge, as Inter failed to retain their Champions League and Serie A titles. The 2010-11 season wasn’t a complete washout, with Inter claiming another Italian Cup, and overpowering a weak field to become club world champions. The wheels conclusively came off during the following campaign. Inter got through three managers, but none of Gian Piero Gasperini, Claudio Ranieri or Andrea Stramaccioni could arrest a slide that ended with Inter 26 points adrift of champions Juventus in sixth, turfed out in the Champions League last 16 by Marseille, and bereft of silverware for the first time in eight years. They would have to wait another nine years for their next trophy, winning the league in the 2020-21 season. Chelsea 2015-16 Mourinho’s second season of his second spell as Chelsea boss was a roaring success. The club were 2014-15 Premier League champions and League Cup winners. A Champions League defeat on away goals by Paris Saint-Germain prompted confident predictions of atonement the following season. What transpired in 2015-16, however, bore no resemblance to those lofty expectations. Chelsea’s opening-day draw with Swansea City was overshadowed by a squabble between Mourinho and Eva Carneiro, the club doctor, from which the team seemingly never recovered. Chelsea lost four of their opening eight Premier League fixtures, after only three defeats in the previous campaign. They were beaten in seven of their opening 12, and when that became nine losses in 16, Mourinho was axed. The team improved under caretaker boss Guus Hiddink, but finished 10th and were comfortably beaten in the Champions League last 16 by PSG. Leicester City, 2016-17 The Foxes inflicted the last rites on Mourinho’s Chelsea reign, beating the reigning champions 2-1, around the time people began to wonder if they really could win the Premier League. If nobody saw that coming, very few anticipated the speed of Leicester’s subsequent collapse. They lost three of the first six games of their title defence, the same number of defeats in the whole of the previous season. And that wasn’t the half of it. Claudio Ranieri, was sacked, with Leicester one point above the relegation zone after 25 matches. Replacement Craig Shakespeare inspired a brief upturn, and Leicester finished 12th, with 37 fewer points, 11 fewer wins, 20 fewer goals scored, 15 more defeats and 27 more goals conceded. Honourable mentions Antonio Conte, the successor to Mourinho at Chelsea, won the 2016-17 Premier League title in his first campaign at the helm. The Londoners slumped to fifth the following season, the nadir arriving with a sequence of five defeats in seven games over the new year. Conte won the FA Cup but was fired, nonetheless. Leeds United were the final English champions before the inception of the Premier League. The Yorkshire club made an abysmal start to the new era. They failed to win any of their 21 away matches, and finished two points above the bottom three in 17th. Lille were surprise winners of France’s Ligue 1 in 2020-21, but ran out of legs when coming home 10th the following season. In the here and now, Ajax Amsterdam, Dutch champions for four straight seasons, before finishing third last term, were rock bottom of the league in October. They have recovered to finish fifth, the club’s worst domestic performance for nearly a quarter century.