Celestine BABAYARO

 Despite his tender age, 18-year-old Celestine Babayaro was already the owner of an Olympic gold medal as a member of the Nigerian team which pipped Argentina to the prized gong at the 1996 Olympic Games, before joining Ruud Gullit's Chelsea side from Belgian giants Anderlecht in the summer of 1997. The athletic left-back, signed for a fee of £2, 250, 000 was followed into Stamford Bridge just prior to the start of the new season by the returning Graeme Le Saux, and was forced to endure a frustrating two-month wait to make his league bow in a victory over Leicester City, his only other appearance in the first team having come a fortnight earlier as a substitute in a European Cup Winners Cup clash with Slovan Bratislava. Sadly, though, having finally broken into the team, Babayaro's season took a turn for the worse when he was forced to miss much of his first term with a foot injury which restricted him to just eight appearances throughout the campaign.

A steady, unflappable defender, Babayaro made his breakthrough in earnest during the following season, his 28 league outings being supplemented by regular appearances in the Blues side which fell at the semi-final stage as they sought to retain their ECWC trophy. His first goal - and the first sighting in London of his flamboyant, gymnastic goal celebration - for the Stamford Bridge outfit came in the first home game of the new campaign, to earn a 1-1 draw with Newcastle, and further strikes arrived in league clashes with West Ham and Derby County, and in a ECWC clash with Norwegian side Valerenga, a match the Blues might conceivably have not been playing in had it not been for Baba's memorable, breathtaking goal-line clearance in Denmark in the previous round, which helped Chelsea squeeze through a tight clash with FC Copenhagen. Sadly, the Nigerian was denied what would have been his finest moment in a Chelsea shirt when his last minute 30-yard pile-driver at Old Trafford slammed against the post to deny the title-challenging Blues a vital win against the eventual champions. (Kelvin Barker)

 Having finished third in the Premiership at the end of the 1998/99 season, Chelsea faced a Champions League qualifier against Latvian side Skonto Riga, the first leg of which was proving to be a frustrating affair at Stamford Bridge until Babayaro - on as a late sub for Didier Deschamps - headed past Skonto's future Crystal Palace 'keeper, Kolinko, to open the floodgates. Sixty seconds later, Gus Poyet doubled the lead, before £10m man, Chris Sutton, struck one-third of his goals for the club to seal a 3-0 victory, and a place in the Champions League (the second-leg in Riga was a formality, and ended 0-0). Expected to challenge again for the Premiership title, Chelsea's league form was desperately disappointing in 1999/2000, perhaps affected by the club's exhilarating European campaign. Having qualified for the second group stage, the Blues then reached the knockout phase, with six crucial points being garnered in 3-1 victories both home and away against Dutch side Feyenoord. In the home match, Baba scored his second and last goal of the season to again break the deadlock, after an inspired goalkeeping performance by Jerzy Dudek in the Feyenoord goal had threatened to keep Chelsea at bay. The excited Blues were paired against a talented but beatable Barcelona side in the quarter-finals, and Babayaro was a member of the team which memorably led 3-0 at half-time of the first-leg in London. An eventual 3-1 lead was overturned in the Nou Camp however as Chelsea, stifled by Gianluca Vialli's naive tactics, fell apart after Barca scored a late equaliser to take the game into extra-time, a period during which Baba was sent-off for fouling Rivaldo to concede a penalty which the theatrical Brazilian converted.

A major consolation for that season's disappointments came with an FA Cup triumph over an Aston Villa side whose negative tactics ruined the last Cup Final at Wembley as a spectacle. Babayaro was given the nod ahead of Le Saux at the start of the 2000/01 campaign, and was again a Wembley winner as the Blues beat Manchester United to lift the Charity Shield, but both men struggled for fitness and were forced to miss large chunks of a season which saw Vialli replaced by Claudio Ranieri in the opening weeks. However, the pair clearly flourished under the Italian and soon formed a formidable pairing along Chelsea's left flank, with Babayaro playing the defensive role, and Le Saux being converted into the finest left midfielder in England in most observers' eyes (although not those of the England manager, unfortunately). League form remained a little patchy, but when the team clicked they were an impressive unit, and Baba was fortunate enough to be a member of the side which ran up consecutive 4-0 victories over Tottenham and Sunderland in March. However, it was in the FA Cup that the Blues really caught the eye, beating London rivals West Ham, Tottenham (4-0 again, this time at White Hart Lane) and Fulham en route to an unlucky 2-0 defeat at the hands of Arsenal. Babayaro played the first-half of the final at Cardiff's Millennium Stadium, before making way for John Terry at the interval. (Kelvin Barker)