Chelsea will be wary of the threat posed by Italian champions Juventus when they face each other in the Champions League at Stamford Bridge as the Blues look to begin their campaign on a sound note. However, one particular player - Andrea Pirlo -- will be watched closely after the gifted playmaker tore England apart in Euro 2012.
John Obi Mikel knows all about disciplined defending, and those words will be particularly on the midfielder's mind when he faces off against Pirlo.
"Pirlo is a great player and he has been in the game a long time," Mikel said ahead of the crucial opener.
"Every day I come in to training and I like learning, even from the younger players, and I am always open to new things. Playing against a legend like Pirlo is going to be great but I also want to win so it is going to be a battle.
"He wants to win and I want to win but I respect him as a player and hopefully I can learn from him tomorrow."
Mikel believes this Chelsea team is capable of defending their Champions League crown, something no team has been able to do so far. "Being the winners does add pressure to us, but at the same time we are kind of more relaxed because we have won it now, but we don't want to relax because we want to build on the success," the defensive midfielder said.
"We have lots of good, senior players to deal with the pressure and we are all big players so we live with pressure every game. It isn't going be easy because Juventus haven't lost for a long time but if we go out there and we are tactically sound then we have a very good chance of winning the game.
"Everyone knew how important it was for us to win the Champions League, but we don't want to stop and hopefully tomorrow is going to be the start of us retaining the title.
"It is many of the same players here and the same manager and we want to go far. Real Madrid and Barcelona are going to be favorites to win it this season but that is what happened last season when everybody wrote us off before we played Barcelona.
"Those games showed how much we wanted to win the Champions League.
"We worked very hard for what we achieved last season and we have brought in new players that are going to help us in the game. Hopefully this season we can play good football and get to the final again. We are still hungry."
