Chelsea, Inter, AC Milan, Leicester City and Ajax: Kitchee in good company falling from grace

There is no escaping the implosion at the city’s biggest club, however, even if chairman Ken Ng-kin said the lack of Asian football next season was “not the end of the world”.

He was perhaps drawing on the experiences of more illustrious clubs whose empires collapsed almost overnight.

AC Milan 1996-97

Champions in 1996, their fourth title in five seasons, the roof fell on the Rossoneri following the summer exit of head coach Fabio Capello at Real Madrid.

Capello lost just three Serie A games in his final season at the San Siro, with Milan scoring 60 goals and conceding just 24 in 34 games.

Oscar Tabarez, who would lead his native Uruguay to the 2010 World Cup semi-finals, succeeded Capello for a doomed reign. Tabarez had World Player of the Year George Weah up front, a midfield with Marcel Desailly and Paolo Maldini and Franco Baresi in defence, as well as Roberto Baggio.

However, Milan were hopeless, winning just four of their opening 11 league games and exiting a Champions League group with Porto, Rosenborg and IFK Göteborg.

Arrigo Sacchi replaced Tabarez in December and Milan limped to 11th place, just six points clear of relegation.

Inter Milan, 2011-12

Inter’s legendary 2009-10 side suffered a thousand cuts after losing Jose Mourinho’s treble-winning mastermind to perennial power-stealers Real Madrid.

Rafa Benitez and Leonardo had time in charge as Inter failed to retain their Champions League and Serie A titles. The 2010–11 season was not a complete slump, with Inter claiming another Coppa Italia and overtaking a field weak to become world club champions.

The wheels came off for good in the following campaign. Inter went through three managers but none of Gian Piero Gasperini, Claudio Ranieri or Andrea Stramaccioni could stop a slide that ended with Inter 26 points behind sixth-placed champions Juventus, knocked out in the last 16 of the Champions League of Marseilles and destitute of silver. for the first time in eight years. They would have to wait another nine years for their next trophy, winning the league in the 2020-21 season.

Chelsea 2015-16

Mourinho’s second season in his second spell as Chelsea boss was a smashing success. The club were 2014–15 Premier League champions and League Cup winners. A Champions League defeat on away goals at Paris Saint-Germain prompted confident predictions of redemption next season.

However, what happened in 2015-16 was nothing like those lofty expectations. Chelsea’s opening day draw with Swansea City was overshadowed by a spat between Mourinho and Eva Carneiro, the club doctor, from which the team seemingly never recovered.

Chelsea have lost four of their opening eight Premier League games, after just three defeats in the previous campaign. They were beaten in seven of their first 12, and when that became nine defeats in 16, Mourinho was axed.

The team improved under interim boss Guus Hiddink, but finished 10th and were comfortably beaten in the last 16 of the Champions League by PSG.

Leicester City, 2016-17

The Foxes put the final rites to Mourinho’s reign at Chelsea by beating the reigning champions 2-1 as people began to question whether they could actually win the Premier League.

If no one saw it coming, very few anticipated the speed of Leicester’s subsequent collapse.

They lost three of the first six games of their title defense, the same number of losses in the entire previous season. And that wasn’t the half of it.

Claudio Ranieri, has been sacked, with Leicester one point above the relegation zone after 25 games. Substitute Craig Shakespeare inspired a brief comeback and Leicester finished 12th with 37 fewer points, 11 fewer wins, 20 fewer goals scored, 15 defeats and 27 goals conceded.

Honorable mentions

Antonio Conte, Mourinho’s successor at Chelseawon the 2016–17 Premier League title in his first campaign at the helm.

The Londoners dropped to fifth place the following season, the nadir arriving with a run of five defeats in seven games in the new year. Conte won the FA Cup but was sacked nonetheless.

Leeds United they were the last champions of England before the start of the Premier League. The Yorkshire club have made an abysmal start to the new era. They failed to win any of their 21 away games and finished two points above the bottom three in 17th place.

Lille they were surprise winners of the French Ligue 1 in 2020-21, but ran out of legs when they finished 10th at home the following season.

In the here and now Ajax Amsterdam, champions of the Netherlands for four consecutive seasons before finishing third last term, were top of the league in October. They recovered to finish fifth, the club’s worst domestic performance in nearly a quarter of a century.