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You know how when you start a brand new game of Football Manager, one of the first tasks you're presented with is arranging a friendly between your chosen team and your chosen team's reserves? This is that game. Chelsea B vs. Chelsea.
I'm only half joking.
Date / Time: Wednesday, July 30, 2014, 18:30 BST; 1:30pm EDT; 11pm IST
Venue: GelreDome, Arnhem, Netherlands
Forecast: Pleasant, like our relationship
On TV: Chelsea TV (UK); elsewhere
Online: Chelsea TV (available everywhere except in the Netherlands)
Vitesse team news: Jake's got you covered with the LIVE BLOG already, so check that out if you haven't yet. Hopefully we'll get to see Chelsea boys Wallace and Bertrand Traoré and the absolutley marvelously named Marvelous Nakamba who has just been signed to a permanent contract after a two-week trial.
Vitesse begin their season the weekend before Chelsea (jumping in at the deep end, away to Ajax) and are thus about a week ahead in their preparations. They've played five preseason matches so far, drawing all five of them.
Chelsea team news: Didier Drogba and John Obi Mikel are the new returning faces at training so far this week. As far as I gather, Victor Moses is not there; he's instead readying a switch to one of WBA, Aston Villa, or West Ham either on loan or permanently or all three and both. Magic man!
Chelsea remain unbeaten this preseason thanks to Sunday's comeback win. Meanwhile, the youth teams won (U18s; 3-1) and drew (U21s; 3-3) against RB Salzburg on Tuesday.
Previously: Chelsea have never played a competitive match against Vitesse and have just four in total against Dutch opposition: two wins against Feyenoord in the 1999-2000 Champions League group stage (matching 3-1 wins) and two draws against DWS Amsterdam in the 1968-69 Fairs Cup second round (matching 0-0 draws, a fairly impressive set of results considering that we had both Bobby Tambling and Peter Osgood). DWS, nowadays just an amateur club in the fourth tier, advanced against Dave Sexton's Chelsea, I kid you not, on a coin toss.