Welcome to Chelsea's opening fixture of the 2010-11 Champions League, with the English champions given a trip to Slovakian minnows Zilina.

Zhirkov finds Benayoun but his cross is too close to Dubravka, who claims easily.

Ceesay lumbers forward but spanks the shot yards over from well outside the box.

Early spell of pressure by the Slovaks as Zhirkov has to put it out for another throw. Rilke crosses but over the head of Ceesay and out for a throw.

Mraz takes, Cech punches clear, quite a good contact on that as it goes out for a throw.

Zilina get a corner early as Vladavic puts Zhirkov under pressure following a pass from Jez.

The first half is underway!

This is Daniel Sturridge's first start in the Champions League. Probably a decent way to break the ice.

MAN TO WATCH: Momodou Ceesay, the Zilina striker, stands a whopping 6'5" and signed for Chelsea in 2008. He was immediately farmed out to Westerlo, their Belgian feeder club, and joined Zilina in the summer. He scored three in four in qualifying.

Despite being at home, Zilina are 10/1 to win this game with Eurosport Bet, with the darw 5/1; Chelsea are 13/10.

Bjorn Kuipers is tonight's referee, by the way. He is Dutch, and was in charge of Barcelona's last 16 win over Stuttgart last season.

Chelsea have scored 145 goals in 95 games in the this tournament. They will have to do without the suspended Drogba though.

This is Zilina's first match in the UEFA Champions League group stage. After eight rounds of the First League season Zilina remain the only unbeaten side in the 12-strong division.

Ancelotti: "We score a lot of goals, we started well this season but you have to pay attention to every game. We are here to win obviously because we want to start this season well. Our aim is to win this group but it will not be easy. very team has a quality and tomorrow Zilina can show fantastic motivation because for them it is an important game against Chelsea and we have to pay attention to this."

No surprises for Chelsea as Carlo Ancelotti named his side yesterday, as with Frank Lampard and Ashley Cole left behind there are starts for Yossi Benayoun and Yuri Zhirkov. Also, yougn English forward Daniel Sturridge replaces the suspended Drogba, while Salomon Kalou makes way for Florent Malouda.

TEAMS - Zilina: Dubravka, Guldan, Piacek, Pecalka, Mraz, Jez, Babatounde, Rilke, Ceesay, Vladavic, Oravec; Subs: Krnac, Angelovic, Leitner, Majtan, Poliacek, Sourek, Vittor /// Chelsea: Cech, Ivanovic, Alex, Terry, Zhirkov, Essien, Mikel, Benayoun, Sturridge, Anelka, Malouda; Subs: urnbull, Ramires, Ferreira, Kalou, Van Aanholt, Kakuta, McEachran

In 2008 Zilina actually beat an English team, in England, in the group stage of the UEFA Cup, winning 2-1 at Aston Villa. Chelsea's only other matches against Slovakian opposition were in 1997, when they beat Slovan Bratislava 4-0 on aggregate to kick off a run that saw them winning the Cup Winners' Cup.

These teams have played each other before, with Chelsea 5-0 aggregate winners in a two-legged qualifying play-off win in 2003, back in the days when Chelsea didn't always automaticalluy qualify.