Chelsea coach Avram Grant insists his entire squad should take a bow for a season that has exceeded all expectations.
Grant will send his side out to face Manchester United in the club's first Champions League final in Moscow on Wednesday night in the belief that their strength of character will enable them to come home as champions.
Chelsea defied all the odds to reach the final and run United right to the wire in the race for the Premier League title.
And it is the never-say-die attitude of his players that has filled Grant with confidence ahead of their showdown with Sir Alex Ferguson's side.
"When we have been beaten this season, you saw the character of the side," said Grant proudly. "When you are winning, everybody is a genius and everyone is the king, but when you have bad results you need to see how they will behave.
"We lost two games against Barnsley in the FA Cup and against Tottenham in the Carling Cup final and it was disappointing for us, but the reaction showed the strength of these players and this team.
"We didn't start well and then we began to play very well for a spell. Then some of then players who were playing very well - Frank Lampard, Didier Drogba, Ricardo Carvalho, John Terry and Petr Cech - got injured.
"So we needed to use all of the squad and it has been an amazing season because everyone has made some kind of contribution - everyone.
"We have to respect the squad players this season because their attitude was fantastic, and their football too."
Chelsea managed to reach the final of the Champions League after overcoming a drab 1-1 draw with Rosenborg at Stamford Bridge in what was former boss Jose Mourinho's last game.
But while Grant has been forced to juggle his squad throughout the season because of injuries and international call-ups in January's African Nations Cup, the 52-year-old Israeli insists he is almost 100% certain of the side he will select for Wednesday night's showdown with their English rivals.
Providing all his players are fit, it will be a simple job for Grant. The only position that may cause him problems is the left of midfield.
There it is a choice of Florent Malouda or Salomon Kalou but that dilemma apart, the team picks itself with Cech, Michael Essien, Carvalho, Terry, and Ashley Cole at the back, Lampard, Michael Ballack and Claude Makelele in midfield plus Joe Cole on the right flank and Drogba in the centre.
"I know 80% of my team," said Grant. "But I like to keep watching them in training to see how they are doing."
The achievement of reaching the Champions League final, with all its financial benefits, is something that Grant admits seemed a long way off when he replaced Mourinho last September.
"In football you need to hope more than believe sometimes," he said. "I believed but it was more in hope than belief at first.
"I started as a new manager and we brought in new staff. Almost everybody except the medical department and Steve Clarke was new.
"Change takes time because we changed from one way of coaching to another. I think there were doubts but we believed that we could still do good things even though the situation was complicated."
Meanwhile, Chelsea's Czech Republic goalkeeper Petr Cech claims "revenge" is on the agenda for the Blues when the face United.
United pipped Chelsea to the Premier League crown on the last day of the season, and when asked on the BBC's Inside Sport TV program if the final was a chance for payback, Cech replied: "Some revenge.
"When you lose, you always feel disappointment and you have extra motivation to win the next game."
