ROBERTO DI MATTEO upstaged his fellow Italian hit men to give Ruud Gullit's new look Chelsea side a last gasp first victory against unlucky Middlesbrough.
The combined talents of Juninho, Emerson and, of course, the former Juventus Champions Cup winning partnership Gianluca Vialli and Fabrizio Ravenelli were struggling to conjure a goal from the feast of football.
But with just five minutes left, Di Matteo, the £4.9m record signing from Lazio, burst forward on to Dennis Wise's cross from the left and crashed a dipping 25 yard right footer deep into Alan Miller's right hand corner.
Middlesbrough deserved so much more for a full contribution to the pace and passing range, imagination and intuition, control and confidence that enthralled 28,272 lucky souls packed into Stamford Bridge.
That they went home empty handed was largely down to another of Gullit's instant imported hits, former Strasbourg sweeper Frank Leboeuf.
He was the rock on which so much of Boro's play foundered, the cool Frenchman reading everything, sweeping up the runs and passes, keeping a cool head when others were panicking.
Vialli's exquisite touch released Wise in the eighth minute for a cross that just bobbled away from Mark Hughes with the goal seemingly at his mercy.
But Vialli's sublime moment came just before the break, an acrobatic leap to keep in play a Dan Petrescu cross sailing over his head, then recovering in time to volley the falling ball into the side netting.
Ravanelli, a more English style centre forward in the willing, hardworking style, presented himself as a solid target man for the runs of Juninho and Emerson - the `silver fox' happy to bide his time.
But when his chance came in the 34th minute, racing away on to Derek Whyte's clearance with the flag staying down, the predatory touch let him down, his low angled shot skidding wide of a relieved Dmitri Kharine's far post.
Hughes should have scored after di Matteo gave him an unblinkered sight of goal from Steve Vickers' horrendous pass but he hooked his shot over and then young Jody Morris missed a great chance.
Chelsea fans were beginning to reflect gloomily that new boss but same old story - it took Chelsea four games to score their first goal last season - when up popped Di Matteo.
