Rapid Vienna vs. Chelsea: Score, Reaction from 2016 Pre-Season Friendly

Antonio Conte suffered defeat in his first match in charge of Chelsea, as the Blues lost Saturday's pre-season friendly with Rapid Vienna 2-0 at the Allianz Stadion. 

Joelinton gave Rapid an early lead, as they outplayed Chelsea for the majority of the game. Tomi Correa sealed the win late on following a mistake from Branislav Ivanovic.

Rapid had already played five pre-season games prior to hosting the Blues and were far sharper and fitter than the visitors.

The hosts quickly set about dominating possession, as Steffen Hofmann fired a warning shot at Asmir Begovic from outside the area.

A minute later, Vienna took the lead when a neat one-two saw Joelinton capitalise on some slack defending from the Blues before rounding Begovic and slotting home.

Matej Divizna/Getty Images

Bleacher Report UK's Garry Hayes believed Chelsea should have done better:

Diego Costa embodied the Blues' frustrating start with a typically aggressive reaction to being fouled:

The visitors' only real chance in the opening period came when Srdjan Grahovac almost turned a Willian cross into his own net, but otherwise they struggled to get out of first gear.

As ESPN FC's Liam Twomey and football journalist Dan Levene noted, their manager did not:

John Obi Mikel seemed to be struggling in particular, as he suffered two humiliating nutmegs in quick succession.

The match picked up toward the end of the half, with Costa firing wide in between efforts from Louis Schaub and Hofmann—the former required a save from Begovic.

Rapid continued to be the much better side after the break. Chelsea still struggled, and had Joelinton made better contact with a dangerous cross into the box, the score could easily have been 2-0.

Initially set up in a 4-2-3-1 formation with Costa as the lone front man, when the Blues pushed forward they supported him well through the likes of Willian, Victor Moses and Oscar, virtually becoming a 4-2-4. Hayes believes the system will work well when Chelsea are at full strength:

The visitors improved as the second half went on, with Costa heading a Papy Djilobodji cross over, before Thomas Schrammel had to deflect Moses' shot wide after he wriggled past a defender.

Substitute Nathaniel Chalobah also got involved in the action, but his vicious strike was well parried, and Ola Aina came even closer when his cross struck the post.

Rapid put an end to Chelsea's revival when Ivanovic gave the ball away in his own half. The Serbian was able to recover to help block the resulting shot on the line, but Correa tapped home.

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The defeat isn't an ideal start to Conte's reign in charge; however, fielding a weakened side against one that's on its way to being match-fit made this contest difficult to win from the start.

Only when the Italian has his full array of options to call upon will it be fair to judge his start at Stamford Bridge.

Post-Match Reaction

Per Chelsea's official Twitter feed, Conte said:

He added: "Our fans were in the stadium and I want to see my fans happy. We want to come back and compete for the title."