Former Nigeria international Celestine Babayaro is set to return to Chelsea in May 2018, more than thirteen years after he bid farewell to the London club.
The Premier League champions wrote on their official website that the triple-trophy-winning class of 1998 will be back playing on the pitch at Stamford Bridge in a charity game against Inter Milan Legends on May 18.
Though the Atlanta 1996 Olympic gold medallist was not among the four players listed (Graeme Le Saux, Gianfranco Zola, Dennis Wise and Gianluca Vialli), the left-back is in line to feature as he belongs to the class of 1998 that won the treble that calendar year.
Babayaro didn’t feature in the League Cup final vs Middlesbrough in March 1998 due to injury and was also missing from the team that beat Jonathan Akpoborie’s VfB Stuttgart in the final of UEFA Cup Winners’ Cup two months later after failing to recover from the injury he suffered against Tottenham earlier in the season.
The former Anderlecht starlet went the distance in Chelsea’s 1-0 win over Real Madrid in the Super Cup final on August 28, 1998.
Babayaro, who later played for Newcastle United, was Chelsea’s most expensive teenager when he joined the club from Anderlecht in 1997 for a transfer fee of £2.25 million.
Vanguard.
