Aston Villa FC

Aston Villa Football Club (also known as The Villa, Villa and The Villans) is an English professional football club based in Aston, Birmingham, who play in the Premier League. The club was founded in 1874 and have played at their current home ground, Villa Park, since 1897. Aston Villa were founder members of Football League in 1888. They were also founder members of the Premier League in 1992. The club was floated by the previous owner and chairman Doug Ellis, but in 2006 full control of the club was acquired by Randy Lerner.

They are one of the oldest and most successful football clubs in England, having won the First Division Championship seven times and the FA Cup seven times. Villa also won the 1981–82 European Cup, one of only four English clubs to win what is now the UEFA Champions League. Aston Villa has the fourth highest total of major honours won by an English club.

They have a long-standing and fierce rivalry with local rivals Birmingham City. The Birmingham derby between Aston Villa and Birmingham City has been played since 1879. The club's traditional kit colours are claret shirts with sky blue sleeves, white shorts and sky blue socks. Their traditional crest is of a rampant gold lion on a light blue background with the club's motto "Prepared" underneath; a modified version of this was adopted in 2007.

To date Aston Villa have spent 98 seasons in the top-flight, the only club to have spent longer in the top-flight is Everton with 105 seasons. As a result, Aston Villa versus Everton is the most played fixture in English top-flight football. Aston Villa is one of an elite group of seven clubs that has played in every Premiership season, they are: Arsenal, Aston Villa, Chelsea, Everton, Liverpool, Manchester United and Tottenham Hotspur. Aston Villa is fifth in the All-time FA Premier League table. Aston Villa has the fourth highest total of major honours won by an English club with 20 wins.

Aston Villa currently hold the record number of league goals scored by any team in the English top-flight; 128 goals were scored in the 1930–31 season. Villa legend Archie Hunter became the first player to score in every round of the FA Cup in Villa's victorious 1887 campaign. Villa's longest unbeaten home run in the FA Cup spanned 13 years and 19 games, from 1888 to 1901.

Aston Villa are one of four English teams that have won the European Champions Cup. They did so on 26 May 1982 in Rotterdam, beating Bayern Munich 1–0 thanks to Peter Withe's goal.

Aston Villa's arch-rivals are Birmingham City, with games between the two clubs known as the 'Second City Derby'. Today, Villa also enjoy less heated local rivalries with West Bromwich Albion, Wolverhampton Wanderers and Coventry City. (These five clubs plus Walsall are collectively referred to in the West Midlands as the 'Big Six'.) Historically though, West Bromwich Albion have been one of Villa's greatest rivals, a view highlighted in a fan survey, conducted in 2003. The two teams contested three FA Cup finals in the late 19th century. Through the relegation of West Brom and Birmingham to The Championship in the 2005–06 season in the 2006–07 Premiership season Villa were the only Midlands club in that League. The nearest opposing team Villa faced during that season was Sheffield United, who played 62 miles (100 km) away in South Yorkshire. For the 2007–08 season Villa once again had two local derbies after Birmingham were promoted to the Premier League on 29 April 2007. Villa were victorious on the both occasions. Birmingham were relegated at the end of the 2007-08 season, as such, there was no Second City derby for the 2008-09 season. Both Birmingham and Wolverhampton gained promotion to the Premier League for the 2009-10 season and rivalries have been resumed.

Inter Milan

Football Club Internazionale Milano, commonly referred to as Internazionale and as just Inter in Italy, is an Italian professional football club based in Milan, Lombardy, founded in 1908. Inter are the champions of Italy, having retained their crown on 16 May 2009, their fourth successive title.

Inter are the only side in Italian football to have spent their entire history in Serie A, the top flight of Italian football which began its first season in 1929. Playing in black and blue striped shirts with black shorts, they have 17 Serie A titles to their name. Including the Coppa Italia and the Italian Super Cup, Inter have a total of 26 trophies won in Italy. Outside of their homeland, the club have also had success in European and World tournaments; they won the European Cup in two successive finals in 1964 and 1965. They have also won the UEFA Cup three times and the Intercontinental Cup twice also in 1964 and in 1965.

Inter play their home games at the Stadio Giuseppe Meazza, also known as the San Siro. The ground, which they share with rivals Associazione Calcio Milan, is the largest in Italian football, with a total capacity of 80,018. Inter train at the fields of sports center "Angelo Moratti" (better known as La Pinetina) in Appiano Gentile, near Como. The term Inter Milan is sometimes used in foreign countries to differentiate Internazionale from A.C. Milan, but is not used within Italy.

Internazionale have never been relegated from the Italian top flight in their entire history, which dates back all the way to 1908; a fact Nerazzurri fans hold in high regard. By comparison, Milan have been relegated twice. As of 2007, following Juventus' relegation to Serie B for the 2006–07 season following the Calciopoli scandal, Inter is the only Italian club that holds this honour, and its century in the top flight is one of the longest unbroken runs of any club in the world.

The current president and owner of Internazionale is Massimo Moratti. His father Angelo was the president of Inter during the club's golden era of the 1960s.

On 15 June 2005, Internazionale won the Coppa Italia, defeating Roma in the two-legged final 3-0 on aggregate (1–0 win in Milan and 2–0 win in Rome) and followed that up on 20 August 2005 by winning the Supercoppa Italiana after an extra-time 1–0 victory against original 2004–05 Serie A champions Juventus (before being stripped of this title). This Super Cup win was Inter's first since 1989, coincidentally the same year since Inter last won the Scudetto before 2006. On 11 May 2006, Inter retained their Coppa Italia trophy by once again, defeating Roma with a 4–1 aggregate victory (A 1–1 scoreline in Rome and a 3–1 win at the San Siro).

Inter were awarded the 2005–06 Serie A championship as they were the highest placed side in the season's final league table after points were stripped from Juventus and Milan — both sides being involved in the match fixing scandal that year. On 14 July 2006, the Italian Federal Appeal Commission found Serie A clubs Juventus, Lazio, Fiorentina, Reggina, and Milan guilty of match-fixing and punished the five clubs involved. As a result, with the relegation of Juventus to Serie B (for the first ever time in their history) and the 8-point deduction for city rivals Milan, Inter became favorites to retain their Serie A title for the upcoming 2006–07 Serie A season.

During the season, Inter went on a record-breaking run of 17 consecutive victories in Serie A, starting on 25 September 2006 with a 4–1 home win over Livorno and ending on 28 February 2007 after a 1–1 draw at home to Udinese. The 5–2 away win at Catania on 25 February 2007 broke the original record of 15 matches held by both Bayern Munich and Real Madrid from the "Big 5" (the top flight leagues in England, Italy, Spain, France, and Germany). The run lasted for almost five months and is among the best in European league football, with just Benfica (29 wins), Celtic (25 wins) and PSV (22 wins) bettering it. Inter's form dipped a little as they recorded 0–0 and 2–2 draws against relegation-battlers Reggina and slumping to Palermo (respectively), the latter game featuring a second-half comeback after Palermo went up 2–0 at halftime. They could not keep their invincible form up near the end of the season as well, as they lost their first game of the domestic season to Roma at the San Siro 3–1, thanks to two late Roma goals. Inter had enjoyed an unbeaten Serie A run for just under a year.

On 22 April 2007, Inter were crowned Serie A champions for the second consecutive season after defeating Siena 2–1 at Stadio Artemio Franchi. Italian World Cup winning defender Marco Materazzi scored both goals in the 18th and 60th minute, with the latter being a penalty. Inter started the 2007–08 season with the goal of winning both Serie A and UEFA Champions League. The team started well in the league, topping the table from the first round of matches, and also managed to qualify for the Champions League knockout stage; however, a late collapse leading to a 2–0 defeat with 10 men away to Liverpool on 19 February in the Champions League threw into question manger Roberto Mancini's future at Inter, and domestic form took a sharp turn of fortune with the team failing to win in the three following Serie A games (drawing with Sampdoria and major league opponents Roma, before losing away to Napoli, their first domestic defeat of the season. After being eliminated by Liverpool in the Champions League, Mancini then announced his intention to leave his job, only to change his mind the following day.

An improvement in results then gave Inter the chance to wrap up their Scudetto race twice, but a defeat to city rivals Milan and a home draw against Siena catapulted Roma to within just one point of Inter going into the final round of the Championship. Inter then managed to win at Parma thanks to two goals by Swedish striker Zlatan Ibrahimović, who was still recovering from a knee injury and came off the bench to score for his team.

Following this win, the club decided to sack Mancini on 29 May, citing his declarations following the Champions League defeat to Liverpool as the reason. On 2 June, Inter announced on their official website that they had appointed former FC Porto and Chelsea boss José Mourinho as new head coach, with Giuseppe Baresi as his assistant. This made Mourinho the only foreign coach in Italy in the 2008–09 season kick-off. Mourinho made only three additions to the squad during the summer transfer window of 2008 in the form of Mancini, Sulley Muntari, and Ricardo Quaresma. Under Mourinho's first season as Inter head coach, the Nerazzurri won a Italian Super Cup and a fourth consecutive title, being, however, also eliminated from the Champions League in the first knockout round for a third consecutive time, losing to Manchester United. In winning the league title for the fourth consecutive time, Inter joined Torino and Juventus as the only teams to do this and the first to accomplish this feat in over 50 years.

ACF Fiorentina

ACF Fiorentina, commonly referred to as simply Fiorentina, is a professional Italian football club from Florence, Tuscany. Founded by a merger in 1926, Florentina have played at the top level of Italian football for the majority of their existence; only four clubs have played in more Serie A seasons. After climbing back up the Italian football system in the early 2000s, Fiorentina are currently competing in the Serie A.

Fiorentina have won two Italian Championships, in 1955-56 and again in 1968-69, as well as winning six Coppa Italia trophies. On the European stage Fiorentina won the UEFA Cup Winners' Cup in 1960-61, they finished runners-up in the 1956–57 European Cup losing against Real Madrid and also came close to winning the UEFA Cup, finishing as runners-up in the 1989-90 season.

Since 1931 the club have played at the Stadio Artemio Franchi, which currently has a capacity of 47,282. The stadium has used several names over the years and has undergone several renovations. Fiorentina are known widely by the nickname Viola, a reference to their distinctive purple colours.

The 2009–10 season started with Fiorentina again involved in the qualifying rounds of the Champions League, this time against Portuguese runners-up Sporting Clube de Portugal, who were defeated only on away goals rule (2–2 in Lisbon, 1–1 in Florence). The club was successively drawn a tough group in the following phase, with Olympique Lyonnais, Liverpool F.C. and Debreceni VSC as opponents. On September 24, 2009, Andrea Della Valle resigned from his position as chairman of ACF Fiorentina, and announced all duties would be temporarily transferred to Mario Cognini, Fiorentina's vice president until a permanent position could be filled. On 26 October 2009, Andrea Della Valle stepped down as chairman. Later, Fiorentina managed to reach the knockout stages of the UEFA Champions League for its first time ever after defeating Lyon 1-0 and finishing ahead of Liverpool.

Chelsea FC

Chelsea have recorded several "firsts" in English football. Along with Arsenal, they were the first club to play with shirt numbers on 25 August 1928 in their match against Swansea Town. Chelsea were the first English side to travel by aeroplane to a domestic away match, when they visited Newcastle United on 19 April 1957, and the first First Division side to play a match on a Sunday, when they faced Stoke City on 27 January 1974. On 26 December 1999, Chelsea became the first British side to field an entirely foreign starting line-up (no British or Irish players) in a Premier League match against Southampton. On 19 May 2007, they became the first team to win the FA Cup at the new Wembley Stadium, having also been the last to win it at the old Wembley. After the conclusion of the 2007/08 season, Chelsea became the highest ranked club under UEFA's five-year coefficient system used in the seeding of European club competitions in the following season, the first English club to do so in the 21st century.

Chelsea Football Club is an English professional football club based in West London. The team, founded in 1905, play in the Premier League and have spent most of their history in the top tier of English football. Chelsea have been English champions three times, and have won the FA Cup five times, the League Cup four times and the UEFA Cup Winners' Cup twice.

The club had their first major success in 1955, winning the league championship. Chelsea won several cup competitions during the 1960s and 1970s, but after that did not win another major title until 1997. The past decade has been the most successful period in Chelsea’s history, capped by winning consecutive Premier League titles in 2005 and 2006, and reaching their first UEFA Champions League final in 2008.

Chelsea's home is the 42,055 capacity Stamford Bridge football stadium in Fulham, West London, where they have played since their establishment. The club are based just outside the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea, in the London Borough of Hammersmith and Fulham. In 2003, they were bought by Russian oil magnate Roman Abramovich.

Chelsea's traditional kit colours are royal blue shirts and shorts with white socks. The club crest has been changed several times in attempts to modernize or re-brand; the current crest, featuring a ceremonial lion holding a staff, is a modified version of one first adopted in the 1950s. The club has sustained the fifth highest average all-time attendance in English football. Their average home gate for the 2008–09 season was 41,464, the fifth highest in the Premier League.

In 1930, Chelsea featured in one of the earliest football films, The Great Game. One-time Chelsea centre forward, Jack Cock, who by then was playing for Millwall, was the star of the film and several scenes were shot at Stamford Bridge, including the pitch, the boardroom, and the dressing rooms. It included guest appearances by then-Chelsea players Andrew Wilson, George Mills, and Sam Millington. Owing to the notoriety of the Chelsea Headhunters, a football firm associated with the club, Chelsea have also featured in films about football hooliganism, most recently The Football Factory. Chelsea also appear in the Hindi film Jhoom Barabar Jhoom.

Up until the 1950s, the club had a long-running association with the music halls, with their underachievement often providing material for comedians such as George Robey. It culminated in comedian Norman Long's release of a comic song in 1933, ironically titled "On the Day That Chelsea Went and Won the Cup", the lyrics of which describe a series of bizarre and improbable occurrences on the hypothetical day when Chelsea finally won a trophy.

The song "Blue is the Colour" was released as a single in the build-up to the 1972 League Cup Final, with all members of Chelsea's first team squad singing; it reached number five in the UK Singles Chart. The song was later adapted to "White is the Colour" and adopted as an anthem by the Vancouver Whitecaps in Canada. In the build-up to the 1997 FA Cup final, the song "Blue Day", performed by Suggs and members of the Chelsea squad, reached number 22 in the UK charts. Bryan Adams, a fan of Chelsea, dedicated the song "We're Gonna Win" from the album 18 Til I Die to the club.