John Terry, Chelsea Vying for Most Miserable 2010 in Sports

On Tuesday, Chelsea lost to Inter Milan 1-0, eliminating the Blues from UEFA Champions League play before the semifinals for the first time since 2006. As losses in early stages of international competitions go, it was especially brutal: Chelsea was at home, gave up a goal to Samuel Eto’o in the 78th minute, saw Didier Drogba sent off for stepping on an Inter player, and fell at the hands of former manager José Mourinho. That loss has already prompted British voices to call for Chelsea to rebuild -- never mind that the club is just two points back of Manchester United in the Premier League table -- and it would seem that it was a low point for the organization.Then John Terry’s terrible year got worse.

Upon leaving Stamford Bridge on Tuesday, Terry’s car was swarmed by paparazzi, and driving through that crowd, he ran into a member of the club’s security staff, breaking the man’s leg. Terry was not aware of the injury at the time, but has since been questioned by police. I’m not entirely sure how colliding with a pedestrian hard enough to break a leg goes unnoticed by a driver, but it certainly seems like we will find out as this gets investigated. I imagine that, in England, this will be like when Randy Moss drove into a traffic cop, but several orders of magnitude bigger.

Combine this with Terry’s other off-the-field troubles, and you get a sense that this is neither his nor his club’s year. English fans must only hope that this string of bad luck doesn’t affect their potent national team this summer any more than it already has with the losses of Wayne Bridge and David Beckham.

↵