Chelsea cruised to victory in their opening Group F match away to Slovakian side MSK Zilina to grab all three points in their quest for the Holy Grail – the Champions League.
Goals from Michael Essien, two from Nicolas Anelka and Daniel Sturridge gave the Blues an easy night with Ovavec scoring the lone home side goal.
It took Chelsea just 13 minutes for Michael Essien to open the scoring.
After initial good possession by the Zilina, Chelsea without the suspended Didier Drogba, injured Frank Lampard and rested Ashley Cole took control and Essien tucked home from just inside the penalty area after good set-up play by Yossi Benayoun and Nicolas Anelka.
Number two came on 24 minutes when Florent Malouda sent Nicolas Anelka clear on the left. The Frenchman raced into the Zilina area and slotted home a smart left footer past the hapless Krnac.
Anelka hit his second four minutes later. A Malouda right-sided corner was met by a John Terry header who smacked the ball off the cross bar. Anelka was first to react and tucked home from close range.
So comfortable were the Blues that Terry even took a foray up front and forced a save out of Krnac on 33 minutes.
Malouda should have scored number four on 38 minutes, when following a quick counter-attack, the French wide man found himself with a daisy-cutting drive, on target, inside the Zilina area but the ball was deflected away for a corner.
Vladavic and Bello had good chances with three minutes remaining of the first half – the first saw a save from Cech, the second- a header by Bello went inches wide of his goal.
It took Chelsea just two minutes of the second half to hit number four when Daniel Sturridge raced onto a fine though ball, and rounded Krnac and side-footed home a deft left footer.
Zilina finally scored on 54 minutes and it came from a simple tap-in by Ovavec after a defensive mix-up with Cech and Alex which saw the goalkeeper miss a regulation cross, the ball bounced off the Brazilian centre-back’s head and rolled towards the line where Ovavec helped it over.
Vladavic produced a fine drive a minute later but only troubled Cech’s side-netting.
Chelsea 17-year-old FA Youth Cup winning midfielder Josh McEachran came on 79 minutes to make a European bow.
Patrick van Aanholt came on with three minutes to go for Malouda as the Blues ran out the clock.
1 Petr Cech
2 Branislav Ivanovic
33 Alex
26 John Terry (c)
18 Yury Zhirkov
5 Michael Essien
12 John Mikel Obi
10 Yossi Benayoun
23 Daniel Sturridge
39 Nicolas Anelka
15 Florent Malouda
Subs: 22 Ross Turnbull, 19 Paulo Ferreira, 38 Patrick van Aanholt, 7 Ramires, 46 Josh McEachran, 44 Gael Kakuta, 21 Salomon Kalou.
Zilina are expected to start in the following 4-2-3-1 formation:
Krnac; Guldon, Piacek, Pecalka, Mraz; Jez, Bello; Rilke, Ceesay, Vladavic; Ovavec.
Subs: Vittor, Angelovic, Poliacek, Krnac, Sourek, Leitner, Majtan .
The referee is Björn Kuipers from the Netherlands.