london (ap)

Chelsea's players face up to another unfamiliar situation today when they go into their last Champions League group match against CFR Cluj needing victory to be absolutely sure of a place in the next round.

It's just the latest new experience for a squad that recently lost its four-year unbeaten home streak in the Premier League and has stumbled badly away from Stamford Bridge in Europe.

"Normally at this stage we are qualified but we didn't play well every game," midfielder Michael Ballack said. "We have the last game at home but we don't have to speak so much about this. We have to win."

Chelsea have been targeting the Champions League title since Russian billionaire Roman Abramovich bought the club in 2003 and reached last season's final. Only last week, chief executive Peter Kenyon said the aim was to go one better and win the trophy.

But manager Luiz Felipe Scolari sought to play down the importance of the game, adding that his stint in charge of the Brazil national team was more stressful.

One more game

"It's just one more game," Scolari said. "It's not the most important game of the season. It's important for our qualification for the next phase, but it's the same as other games. If we lose maybe we are out. I would not feel good but no more than this. This is life, this is football.

"In Brazil there are millions of people and I was a coach there. Everybody is a coach in Brazil. Do you think this is pressure? Here is zero."

Chelsea are in this predicament because of a 3-1 loss at AS Roma and 1-1 draw with Bordeaux, both of which represented missed opportunities to secure progress. The Blues also drew 0-0 at Cluj earlier in the tournament, making them winless away from home in group play for the first time.

Chelsea now need to beat the visiting Romanian team to be sure of a place in the second round, since any other result could give Bordeaux the chance to go through with a victory at Roma.

That should be a simple task for the likes of Ballack, Nicolas Anelka and John Terry, but Frank Lampard is suspended after he was sent off at Bordeaux two weeks ago and many teams seem to have figured out how to get a result at Stamford Bridge.

Until October 26, Chelsea's only home loss in 4 1/2 years was to Barcelona in the Champions League quarter-finals. But Liverpool and Arsenal have both won there, and Manchester United, Tottenham and Newcastle secured draws, by sitting deep and packing the midfield.

Unexplicable

"Sometimes you can't explain things and normally at home especially we are very strong," Ballack said. "But in the last weeks with the first defeat for a long time, we lost a little bit of something and we couldn't make the results that we wanted."

Cluj, which cannot qualify and is even out of contention for the UEFA Cup spot awarded to the third-place team, could try a similar tactic as it pursues a morale-boosting finish to its first season in Europe's premier club competition.