UEFA Champions League Final 2012: Huge Win Won't Halt Change for Chelsea

Usually, a club claiming a double is an occasion for both celebration and continuity.

Especially when one of those two titles comes in the UEFA Champions League.

But Chelsea is anything but your average club, unless your idea of an "average club" is one owned by an egomaniacal Russian billionaire who sacks managers (seven times since 2007) like it's going out of style. Two of those men, Jose Mourinho and Carlo Ancelotti, were disposed of within a year of claiming two trophies in the same season.

Of course, neither of those doubles included a European crown. Roberto Di Matteo's miraculous run may well be enough to tame Roman's thirst for blood turnover now that the owner has the crown he's long craved.

Or not. Chelsea chairman Bruce Buck was noncommittal about RDM's chances of retaining employment with the club for which he once starred as a player, telling ESPN Soccernet:

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"Roberto is certainly in the mix, and he's done a great job for us. He has to have serious consideration."

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Apparently, consideration for full-time employment is the only reprieve that can be granted a caretaker manager who leads the Blues to trophies in the Champions League and the FA Cup.

Whether Di Matteo actually wants to stay on may be a different story entirely. Said RDM to Soccernet after Saturday's stunner over Bayern Munich:

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"I feel great, but I need a holiday because these last three months have been very challenging. At this moment, whatever the future holds for me is irrelevant."

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If Di Matteo is already this exhausted from three months of work under Roman's thumb, when expectations were somewhat dampened by the short-lived regime of Andre Villas-Boas, he must have some reservations about being permanently installed on the touchline now that the bar's been set so high.

Anything less than a repeat of this season's magical run, along with a finish more favorable than sixth place in the English Premier League, may well doom RDM to the same fate that befell Mourinho and Ancelotti before him.

Not that RDM is the only man whose future at Stamford Bridge remains in doubt. Didier Drogba, who headed in the 88th-minute equalizer for Chelsea and put through the winning penalty kick, will soon be out of contract. Fernando Torres, who sprang to life for the Blues late in the campaign, may quit the club if reports from guillembalague.com of his dissatisfaction with being left out as a reserve prove to be true.

Still, the fates of those two players, much less the club's impending strategy on the transfer market, will be decided until RDM's place in North London has been settled. Will the Bond-villain-as-owner sign off on Di Matteo's return? Or will he go grasping at straws for another big-name retread?

And does RDM really care, either way?

Where a continental cup would grant most clubs a measure of—if not a mandate for—stability, at Chelsea, winning in Europe assures only one constant: insanity.

Or, as the Blues might call it, business as usual.

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