Chelsea get the full Brazilian

Oh boy, are we in for some fun at Stamford Bridge. This week it was announced that Luis Filipe Scolari will take over the Chelsea hot seat from the beginning of July and, if you thought Jose Mourinho was a colourful character, you've seen nothing yet.

The Brazilian, currently masterminding Portugal's impressive run at Euro 2008, makes Jose look like Avram Grant in the personality department.

He loves nothing more than a good pitch-side tantrum, his press conferences are like mini cabarets full of passion and bizarre facial expressions and, when it comes to opinions, he has one on everything and anything.

At the moment, his grasp of English is quite limited. In fact the only phrase we are sure he knows is "Manage England? No thanks." And that should make his opening few months in charge at the Bridge all the more entertaining.

After the grey dullness that was Grant, you can guarantee Scolari will breeze into London like an explosive, self-important rainbow. And he will certainly carry the fans along with him on what promises to be a roller-coaster ride of rants and raves.

But, personality aside, is he the right man for the job? In football terms there are a few doubts.

At international level he has been magnificent - guiding Brazil to the World Cup title in 2002 and then Portugal to the final of Euro 2004 and the semi-finals of the last World Cup.

Nobody can doubt his pedigree and class at that level of the game. But club football is a whole different kettle of fish and, despite his fame, he has never managed a club side in Europe.

Essentially, what that means is he has little recent experience of running a football club on a daily basis. It's one thing motivating and organising your players for a one-off game or a month-long tournament but it's quite another dealing with them over the course of a gruelling, nine-month season.

Scolari has all the hallmarks of a good cup manager but we have little or no recent evidence that he can win leagues. And that is a reality, not an opinion.

In terms of the style of football he will bring to Chelsea, both the fans and the players will be more than happy. Luiz Felipe is an advocate of proper football. He loves flair and skill and wants his teams to attack with purpose. It might be because of his Brazilian roots, but there can be no doubting that a Scolari team will excite and thrill at every available opportunity.

And, after the boring predictability of the short Grant era, that is a definite vote-winner. On the down side, there are a couple of things that worry me. Firstly is the potential for chases between Abramovich and Scolari. Like Mourinho, Scolari is astonishingly opinionated - what he says, goes. And there is a very severe danger that could annoy Roman who is not entirely unused to getting his own way.

But the biggest worry I have is how the Brazilian will react to the media coverage he is heading into. His reason for turning down the England job when Sven Goran Eriksson was fired was that he found the British media too intrusive.

True, as Chelsea manager he won't get the sort of attention Sven got, but he will, nevertheless, be constantly in the spotlight. And more so because we are dealing with a man who once told a press conference after a monumental win that he was "going home to kiss his wife and maybe more if the mood grabs them".

The tabloids will adore that sort of stuff and that will make him even more of a target than the quiet, reserved and thoughtful Capello.

A couple of weeks ago I emphasised how important an appointment this was for Chelsea, one they had to get right to repair some of the PR damage they have suffered since the Abramovich take-over.

Chelsea needed a man who could win over the neutral, get them playing attractive football and continue their newly discovered streak of winning things. And, in Scolari, I think they have a managed to do just that - at a rumoured cost of £7 million a year. A lot of money for most clubs but, in Chelsea's case, the sort of spare cash their owner may find in an old suit pocket.

All in all, a good move by Chelsea. Quite possibly, a great one.

The team of shame

OK, OK, I realise it's a week late but I got caught up in the Euro 2008 frenzy that has gripped the island. I promised you that I would publish the definitive anti-fantasy football team taken from last season's Premiership squads.

So, here it is, the 11 worst players as nominated by you.

Goalkeeper: Paul Robinson; Left Back: Jan Arne Riise; Centre Back: Titus Bramble; Centre Back: Philipe Senderos; Right Back: Paolo Ferriera; Left Midfield: Flourent Malouda; Centre Midfield: Robbie Savage; Centre Midfield: John Oster; Right Midfield: Emmanuel Eboue; Centre Forward: Niclas Bendtner; Centre Forward: Andriy Schevchenko.

Additionally, there were several nominations for the entire Derby team but that would just have been cruel. True, but cruel.

And special thanks to Karl Vassallo and Andrew Cauchi for their dedication to duty when it came to researching their nominees. Nice work, chaps.

Life in the fast lane

When Lewis Hamilton drove his Formula 1 car into the back of Kimi Raikonnen at the Canadian Grand Prix, there will have been one man laughing at the sheer stupidity of the accident - his father Anthony.

Obviously Anthony Hamilton would have been concerned for his young lad's health but, the second it became clear it was nothing more than a low speed, bumper-to-bumper incident, he must have wet himself with mirth.

The reason? Very simple.

A week or so earlier, Anthony himself had had a little incident, managing to drive a borrowed Porsche into a garden hedge.

At the time, Lewis showed huge compassion, telling the media: "I've been laughing. I said 'Dad, how do you crash a car at 30mph?"

So, young Lewis, how would you like that humble pie served?

Quotes of the week

In view of the Stamford Bridge appointment of Scolari, I thought it would be only fair to give Chelsea fans a little taste of what they are in for. So here are a couple of Big Phil's tastier comments from over the years.

Talking after winning the World Cup with Brazil: "I think Pele knows nothing about soccer. He's done nothing as a coach and his analysis turns out to be always wrong. If you plan on winning a title, you do the opposite to what Pele says."

His views on invasion of privacy: "If someone talks about my private life, for example, I'll give them a good punching. I'm not interested in suing. I like to sort things out my way."

And on the benefits of being South American: "South American coaches, especially Brazilians and Argentineans, have a certain mystique about them. We make everything enjoyable and that's what football's all about - having fun!"

As I said before, his time at Chelsea shouldn't be boring...

Your say

"The Netherlands beat Italy 3-0, with a controversial goal by Van Nistelrooy as the opener, which many Italian supporters (never the best losers) claimed was offside, but in reality was not. The Times reported the match on the next day's issue, and had a large picture of Van Nistelrooy celebrating with many Italian players raising a hand in protest at what they deemed offside.

"Well, do you remember your article last week, in which you wrote that the Netherlands players were constantly squabbling between themselves? If you look closely at the photo, you will see a Dutch player also raising his hand in protest about Van Nistelrooy's goal! What do you make of that?" Jonathan Polidano, via e-mail.

sportscolumnist@timesofmalta.com