Is Chelsea's Juan Cuadrado the Modern-Day Gabriele Ambrosetti?

Blink and you would have missed him.

Gabriele Ambrosetti signed for Chelsea to much fanfare in 1999; he was the Italian Ryan Giggs, according to Gianluca Vialli, the manager who brought him to Stamford Bridge.

Perhaps Vialli was referring to the fact Ambrosetti was a left-winger, as that's where the comparison ended. Whereas Giggs was the fulcrum of the Manchester United attack in the 1990s, Ambrosetti barely registered on the radar of defences during his brief time in England.

Giggs kept defenders up at night at the thought of what he might do to them when they faced him. In contrast, Ambrosetti sent the crowd to sleep on the rare occasion he played for Chelsea.

Signed for £3.5 million from Vicenza, he was a big flop. After one year and 23 appearances in west London, he was shipped back to his homeland on loan, and Chelsea fans never saw him again.

In today's market, that Ambrosetti fee would be considerably inflated, maybe somewhere closer to the £26 million Chelsea paid Fiorentina for Juan Cuadrado.

And much like Ambrosetti, Cuadrado is threatening to prove an expensive mistake.

The signs are much the same for Cuadrado as they were when Ambrosetti was signed.

There haven't been any claims to suggest he's the Colombian Gareth Bale, yet Cuadrado arrived at Stamford Bridge in January with a reputation boosted by his exploits for his country at the World Cup.

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Indeed, it was a surprise to many that his departure from Florence hadn't come six months earlier.

As Chelsea found to their detriment with Ambrosetti, reputations count for little when signing players, however.

Cuadrado has been bad. Real bad.

We can talk of a need to acclimatise to the English game, yet it's an argument that doesn't cut it for Cuadrado.

There's acclimatising, and then there's disappearing altogether. Now the season's complete, we know it's been the latter.

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He's 27 years old, in the peak years of his career, and he should have been performing much better than he has whenever he's featured.

It was a Cup Winner's Cup quarter-final against Chelsea that convinced Vialli to bring Ambrosetti to the Premier League all those years ago.

Ambrosetti tore through the Chelsea rearguard at times and showed what he was capable of. The problem, though, was that nothing was expected of him.

It may have been a major European tie, yet Chelsea were the favourites. They were the Cup Winners' Cup holders, going well in the Premier League, and lowly Vicenza's European dream was supposed to end there.

After a 1-0 home victory, the inevitable happened for the Italians as they lost 3-1 at Stamford Bridge, but they didn't go down without a fight—a fight that Ambrosetti helped bring to Chelsea.

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Having to defend that lead was perhaps Vicenza's downfall. Suddenly there was an expectation on them, and they faulted at the key moment. It all proved too much for them.

The same happened for Ambrosetti's career, going from the footballing backwaters of Italy's north-east to the glare of the Premier League.

When his £3.5 million price tag demanded he perform, Ambrosetti couldn't. It was as though he was shackled—either that or those performances in a Vicenza shirt bucked the trend.

A big fish in Florence, Cuadrado is now struggling to be just that in London. We know he's capable of so much more than he's produced, but has his confidence taken that much of a hit that he'll never truly recover to establish himself in England?

Cuadrado was supposed to challenge Willian on the right. He was signed for that reason on the back of Andre Schurrle's sale.

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It's been the opposite, with Willian's importance to Mourinho only heightened.

Ahead of the 1986/87 Ashes series, one journalist quipped that it wasn't all bad news for England as they traveled to Australia.

England only had three problems, according to Martin Johnson of the Independent: "They can't bat, can't bowl and can't field," was his now infamous analysis.

It's similar in Cuadrado's case, only he can't run, can't cross and can't shoot. Other than that, he's fine.

It's been such an underwhelming start to his Chelsea career that anything but Cuadrado following Ambrosetti's legacy seems difficult to comprehend.

There are so many similarities with their stories, not least that they were both 26 when Chelsea came calling for their services.

Turning things around is going to require something resembling a miracle from Cuadrado.

Garry Hayes is Bleacher Report's lead Chelsea correspondent. All quotes were obtained firsthand unless otherwise noted. Follow him on Twitter @garryhayes