Ancelotti, Chelsea's eighth foreign coach, makes Wembley debut

Premier League champions Manchester United and Chelsea, the FA Cup winners, meet tomorrow afternoon in the Community Shield, the season's curtain-raiser in England.

While the Red Devils have Alex Ferguson at the helm for his 24th consecutive season at Old Trafford, Chelsea will have a new coach, Italian Carlo Ancelotti, leading them onto the pitch at the temple of English football in north London.

Guus Hiddink has described his short reign at Stamford Bridge as the best period in his coaching career. Hiddink ended his remarkable chapter at Chelsea by lifting the FA Cup.

Like Hiddink, Ancelotti has a fine pedigree and his main objective is to capture the Champions League, a feat that has eluded all the other coaches hired by Chelsea owner Roman Abramovich so far.

After Glenn Hoddle left the Blues to take over the English national team in 1996, the Chelsea coaches have been foreigners.

The list reads as follows:

1996-98: Ruud Gullit (Holland).
98-2000: Gianluca Vialli (Italy).
2000-04: Claudio Ranieri (Italy).
2004-07: Jose Mourinho (Portugal).
2007-08: Avram Grant (Israel).
2008-09: Luiz Felipe Scolari (Brazil).
2009: Guus Hiddink (Holland).
2009: Carlo Ancelotti (Italy).

So, in the relatively short period of 11 years, the Londoners have had eight different managers at Stamford Bridge.

Life after Ronaldo

This summer, Manchester United received an offer they could not refuse as Real Madrid paid a world record £80m for the signing of Cristiano Ronaldo.

The Portuguese winger was widely expected to head to the Bernabeu one day or another but now it's interesting to see how the English champions will cope without their former prized asset.

To date, Ferguson has strengthened his side with the signings of Antonio Valencia, winger from Wigan, Gabriel Obertan, forward from Bordeaux, and Michael Owen whose last spell was at Newcastle. In all, United spent £20m.

Chelsea were worried that John Terry was seriously thinking about jumping on Manchester City's bandwagon after the Citizens offered the Chelsea captain a massive wage of £250,000 a week. But Terry came to his senses and opted to stay with the London club.

Chelsea's main capture was defender Yuri Zhirkov from CSKA Moscow for £18m.

It seems, Abramovich loves to give his fatherland's clubs a golden handshake... occasionally.

Portuguese star Deco, who had been waiting for the season to finish to seek new pastures, is now settled at Stamford Bridge after talks with Ancelotti.

Shield history

Manchester United, the first winners of the 'Shield' after they beat Queens Park Rangers 4-0 in 1908, top the all-time winners list with 13 honours following last season's penalty shoot-out win over Portsmouth.

At full-time, the result was 0-0 but the Red Devils went on to win 3-1 on penalties. Before, United shared the honours on four other occasions.

United's last four triumphs in the Community Shield all came via penalty shoot-outs: vs Chelsea 4-2 (1997); Arsenal 4-3 (2003); Chelsea 3-0 (2007) and Portsmouth (2008) 3-1.

Since the title was altered from Charity to Community Shield in 2002, the seven prizes were won by two London sides, Arsenal twice and Chelsea once, and by two Lancastrian teams, Manchester United three times and Liverpool. The last time the 'Shield' was claimed by a side outside London and Lancashire was when Yorkshire-based Leeds beat Liverpool 4-3 in 1992.

In seven appearances in the Shield contest, Chelsea won three and lost the remaining four.

Chelsea and United are meeting for the fourth time in the Community Shield. Previous results show that United lead the Blues 2-1:

1997: United beat Chelsea 4-2 on penalties after a 1-1 draw (Hughes; Johnsen).

2000: Chelsea beat United 2-0 (Hasselbaink, Melchiot).

2007: United held the upperhand 3-0 in a penalty shoot-out after a 1-1 draw (Malouda; Giggs). Welsh wizard Ryan Giggs has figured in all these games.

Tomorrow, if the match after 90 minutes (no extra time is played) is even, Chelsea will have to break their duck to claim the title after losing five consecutive penalty shoot-outs before. Two of those upsets were inflicted by Manchester United.

In the Premier League last season United took four points from the six available against the Londoners as follows: Stamford Bridge: 1-1 (Kalou − Park). Old Trafford: 3-0 (Vidic, Rooney, Berbatov).