People seem to have missed this article in The Guardian yesterday, interesting read

http://www.guardian....ted?INTCMP=SRCH

Why Chelsea are a bigger Premier League icon than Manchester United

We are in the 20th season of the Premier League, and Sir Alex Ferguson has been in charge of Manchester United for an astounding 25 years. Does that make his the most famous face in English football, or just the most likely to turn puce? If one were looking for a single iconic figure to sum up the Premier League years, ought it to be a manager in any case? Surely the people the world is watching are the players. So let's have a brief consideration of Premier League icons past and present, what it takes to be the ultimate icon, and why Chelsea might be more emblematic of the past 20 years of top tier English football than United.

There. I thought that would grab your attention. Clearly United have won far more of the Premier League shiny stuff than Chelsea, and there is no question that they are the most famous club in the country, and deservedly so. The EPL is a worldwide brand, however, that's why people writing comments at the bottom of this article keep referring to it as the EPL, and though I am not about to suggest that Chelsea have a bigger global fan-base than United or are more famous in other corners of the world, I do think they might be more iconic. Of the EPL, I mean. Because United have always been around, haven't they? They were iconic in the 50s and 60s, with the Busby Babes, Bobby Charlton and El Beatle. They are arguably even more famous now, although possibly not by much, but they predate the Premier League much too conspicuously to be synonymous with something only 20 years old.

So do Liverpool, one could argue, though since Liverpool's Premier League story is one of falling short of their previous standards, they cannot be considered EPL icons anyway. Like United, Liverpool are icons of English football, and their 2005 Champions League success was certainly emblematic of the virtues of English football, but once again their most famous storylines have been constructed outside the Premier League narrative, some of them even outside the Premier League era.

Whereas Chelsea, with due respect to the 1955 title-winning side and the famously entertaining era of Peter Osgood, Charlie Cooke and Chopper Harris, are almost entirely an EPL construct. They started grabbing headlines and attention in the early years of the Premier League, through Glenn Hoddle, Ruud Gullit, and Gianluca Vialli, but when Roman Abramovich moved in with his money, turfed out Claudio Ranieri and bankrolled José Mourinho, the EPL found its USP. That means the Premier League finally discovered what it was really good at, and began to do it better than anyone else in football history. To wit, spending colossal amounts of foreign money on foreign players who nevertheless provided value by coming up with results and excitement.

There is no way that what Mourinho achieved at Chelsea comes close to matching what Ferguson achieved at United – how could it, given the disparity in years in the job? – but what Mourinho achieved at Chelsea was a story that went round the world and was lapped up in every corner. The past, incredible, 25 years at United have been essentially an English story, or at least an Anglo-Scottish story, on a more impressive scale but still borrowing plot-lines from Busby and Bill Shankly. There was no real precedent for the Russian revolution at Chelsea. Rich men have backed football clubs before, but few so rich, and few with such immediate, spectacular success in a league that suddenly the whole world wanted to watch.

That is why my vote would go to Didier Drogba in a poll to find the most iconic Premier League player, even if his time in England may be drawing to a close. It has to be a foreigner, for a start, anything else would be less than honest. Drogba is a marvellous mix of ability, athleticism, bravery and brute force, with none too subtle undertones of pantomime comedy occasionally shading into high drama, and he's at the right club. We'll miss him when he's gone.

I do not say Drogba is a better player than Cristiano Ronaldo, or Dennis Bergkamp, Thierry Henry, Gianfranco Zola, Eric Cantona, Roy Keane, Peter Schmeichel, David Silva or any of the other foreign players to have graced the Premier League, just that he is more instantly recognisable by a greater proportion of the world's population, which is more or less what an icon is supposed to be. The dictionary does mention something about the need to be uncritically admired as well as immediately recognisable, which would cut the above list to perhaps Bergkamp, Henry, Silva and Zola, but we are talking about footballers here, not religious icons, and you would have to go a long way to find anyone who did not enjoy watching Drogba's famous bit of stage business with Jens Lehmann a few years ago.

Obviously there are English icons too, take your pick from David Beckham, Steven Gerrard, Alan Shearer, Paul Scholes, Wayne Rooney and a few others, plus assorted Welshmen in Ryan Giggs and Gareth Bale, but half of those are shy, retiring types and the most conspicuously recognisable has worked almost as hard on his recognisability as he has on his football. It may seem perverse to overlook Beckham in an evaluation of anything iconic, though it should be remembered that, though a Londoner, Beckham deliberately attached himself to United in the first place. Before the advent of the Premier League and because of their iconic status. Whether that makes him more or less iconic than George Best in their respective eras is the subject for a debate on another day, but Drogba does not come with any such complications. You just can't miss the Chelsea striker.

I remember watching him play for Marseille against Newcastle and thinking he was made for the Premier League. Mourinho must have agreed. He's not subtle, but he's great viewing. Like the EPL himself, he never hides. He is big, obvious and available. On the pitch, that is, I didn't mean to liken him to a sitcom barmaid. Although he has been known to resemble a big girl's blouse.

Interesting point of view, and I am very happy for Chelsea and Didier to be thought of like this.... however wide of the mark I think, without out a doubt it is Man Utd and probably Beckham that would stand out.

Its definitely nearly Christmas, we are getting our one nice article a year :)

The Drog is a total legend, what a man :)

I agree with all of it... Like the American's comments as a corroboration - "Here in the States the Chelsea games are on the radio every weekend and more of their games are shown live. If that helps".

Good article which I completely agree with. The Guardian is usually a source that contributes with less crap than the other newspapers. Thumbs up for that!

I agree with all of it... Like the American's comments as a corroboration - "Here in the States the Chelsea games are on the radio every weekend and more of their games are shown live. If that helps".

What's the reason for Chelsea being so popular in the States? It seems like the Blues are the club with most passionate fans on the other side of the pond, even though the likes of Liverpool and ManU have a stronger American connection through their owners. It's by no means a bad thing, most Americans who follow football passionately know what they are talking about! That goes for Canadians as well.

The thing is with the americans they are just like the Irish and start supporting who ever is doing well at the time. Im not saying that they change teams but when getting into football they go for the most popular so City will have a big following soon.

The thing is with the americans they are just like the Irish and start supporting who ever is doing well at the time. Im not saying that they change teams but when getting into football they go for the most popular so City will have a big following soon.

That might be the case, but I don't see how it's any different in Europe or Asia for that matter. How many Asian Newcastle fans has one heard of? Fulham is obviously popular as well due to Brian McBride, Clint Dempsey etc.

Many Europeans do however have a local favorite and one abroad as well, like me for instance. Americans also seem to be quite proud of where they come from, they support their local professional sports teams no matter how sh*t they are, which doesn't support them being gloryhunters.

I really hope no Manchester United fans are reading this forum right about now, they'll be

pissing themselves at us.

What's the reason for Chelsea being so popular in the States? It seems like the Blues are the club with most passionate fans on the other side of the pond, even though the likes of Liverpool and ManU have a stronger American connection through their owners. It's by no means a bad thing, most Americans who follow football passionately know what they are talking about! That goes for Canadians as well.

As a native Californian, I'll take a swing at this one.....

United and Liverpool have way, way, way more fans over here than do Chelsea. Not even close. But, a huge proportion of those fans are casual at best. They watch some games, they know most of the starting XI, etc. But they're not what you'd call hardcore fans. They both have plenty of hardcore fans as well; I'm simply saying that in terms of a ratio (hardcore vs casual), their respective fanbases lean towards the latter.

Then you have people like me who grew up playing soccer (sorry, I know you guys probably hate that word) but up until fairly recently couldn't closely follow European leagues because we simply didn't have enough TV coverage. It's getting better. ESPN carries the early Saturday morning games (4:45am or 6:45am California time....yikes!). Fox Soccer Channel gets 2 or 3 other games on Saturday and 1 on Sunday. And then if there's a Monday game that week, ESPN gets that too. Fox Soccer Plus generally carries the rest of the games (or at least most of them). Trouble is, most people (myself in included) don't get Plus. So in a typical weekend, I can see maybe half the Premier League games. With rare exception, that means Chelsea, United, Arsenal, Liverpool, and to a lesser extent (though now growing) Tottenham and City. If any of those teams happen to be playing each other, thus opening up another slot to televise, it's usually Fulham, Everton, or Villa.

What's my point? Well, as an American it'd be tough to follow Wigan, Blackburn, Wolves, West Brom, etc. Bottom line, you can't see enough of their games to be a hardcore supporter. Personally, I can't follow a team half-assed. If I'm in, I'm all the way in, and I want to watch every single game. So that limits you to the top tier teams.

Getting back to those teams, a lot of people who aren't casual soccer fans don't want to follow Liverpool or United. Maybe it's too many casual fans for they're liking. Maybe they don't want to be called a frontrunner for pulling for one of the most successful teams of all-time. I don't know.

I think part of the Chelsea appeal (since Roman took over) is that he runs the club like the best American sports teams are run. The Lakers and Yankees are the most storied NBA and MLB teams respectively, and they go out and buy who they want. They spend boatloads of money doing it, too. So what Roman did is familiar (dare I say appealing?) to us dirty capitalists.

Another factor -- we're not English, obviously. Having a team that is predominantly English doesn't mean anything to us. There's no "pulling for the homegrown guys" element. (Though you'll find some Fulham fans over here who are Fulham specifically because of their connection to American players). Chelsea has/had a ton of big-name players from all over the world. You could watch the World Cup in 2002, 2006, and 2010, and a lot of the names you'd recognize play/played for Chelsea. There's a familiarity about that that draws people to Chelsea. "Oh, I remember such-and-such from the 06 World Cup. He plays for Chelsea? Cool. Damn, that guy plays for Chelsea too? Maybe I should be a Chelsea fan." That's how it went for a lot of people.

As for why Chelsea fans in America seem to be more passionate than other fans in America......I really don't know. It's true though, in my experience. You'll meet more United, Liverpool, or Arsenal fans, but a lot of them don't have more than passing knowledge of the club. You meet fewer Chelsea fans, but it's almost a guarantee that person could talk to you -- in detail -- about the team for hours on end.

That makes sense. It's actually quite interesting how much our countries have in common regarding this. Liverpool (in particular, Finnish players playing a major role) or ManU are the common ones over here, while Chelsea really isn't that popular. Chelsea fans seem to have more knowledge about the team itself, while Liverpool fans are usually regarded (not entirely seriously though) as clowns singing to the TV in their red tops. Tottenham is also gaining in popularity as a first/second team, depending on if one follows the local league or not.

Among soccer (I don't usually use it, but it's derived from "association football", so I feel it's an okay word) people, it's actually frowned upon to only follow a foreign league, and many Finnish Liverpool fans are known for this behavior and a lack of respect for domestic football.

I have to agree with the TV-part, too. It's just a lot easier (and more fun) to follow a team during the Finnish off season that is shown on TV often. I mean, following Crystal Palace would mean surfing really bad streaming from Hong Kong or visiting the UK frequently, which one frankly can't afford.

For me it was more of right time/right place. I gave up watching the NBA and was looking for a new sport to follow. I had a couple of friends who are United fans and steered me towards football. It was the early 2000's and Chelsea were the up and coming team and they had players I'd liked. Crespo , Terry, Cole, Lampard , Gallas and so on. Now it gives me an excuse to go to London on a Holiday to go see a match. I can't see rooting for another EPL team EVER.