Teams around the world looked on in envy at Chelsea Football Club in 2021, desperate to emulate the Blues’ success.

Over the past 12 months, the men’s side won the Champions League for the second time in the club’s history, while the women retained their Women’s Super League title and triumphed in the FA Cup.

A whole host of Chelsea players were nominated for individual accolades, including the Ballon d’Or, while managers Thomas Tuchel and Emma Hayes were lauded for their tactical genius.

It is hard to pinpoint what exactly has made Chelsea one of the most successful football clubs in the world, and the true answer will lie among a range of factors.

Nutrition will certainly be one of the key reasons. Every football team now understands the importance of players having a good diet, whether they are fuelling up for a match or recovering from a gruelling ninety minutes.

As such, Chelsea have launched a dedicated Blue Fuel supplements range. Developed with the teams, nutritionists and coaches at Chelsea, Blue Fuel provides protein bars, powders, recovery shakes and gummies to the club’s male and female players.

According to Chelsea Women star Niamh Charles, Blue Fuel has been a key contributor to the club’s recent success.

"I think it [nutrition] becomes so important, especially when we have so many games close together for the men and the women at the moment," Charles said.

"The turnarounds are so small – as soon as you come off the pitch from that game, it's so important to make sure you're recovering straight away and you're not carrying that fatigue into the next day.

"You need to be ready for the game in two or three days' time. It’s just making sure that we have the Blue Fuel products available to us, it’s just about getting it in us and it does the work for itself.

"It’s quite an easy thing to use – the supplements are there and they’re brilliant to use."

It is always refreshing to hear examples of male and female football players receiving the same resources, and it is no different here.

At Chelsea, Mason Mount will be given the same protein bars as Fran Kirby, while Thiago Silva will enjoy the same recovery shakes as Magda Eriksson.

There is one aspect in which the female players are treated differently, however, but it is a positive.

"I think we're all athletes at the end of the day, but obviously the big difference is around our menstrual cycles," Charles explained.

"We have a great menstrual cycle expert here, who helps us through the different phases – whether we need to focus a little bit more on recovery or a little bit more on fuel.

"It’s only little changes, but depending on what phase you’re in, you might use the gummies a bit more or get more protein into your diet with a supplement."

Blue Fuel product owner Emma Barraclough joined in with the praise for Chelsea’s focus on players' menstrual cycles.

"It’s actually a really proactive approach that Chelsea has to be honest – Emma Hayes has been a massive champion of that and using menstrual cycle tracking tools as well, which is great," she said.

Charles joined Chelsea in 2020, transferring to the Blues after four years at Liverpool. The 22-year-old is considered to be one of the most talented young attackers in women’s football.

Her rise in stature has run in parallel with the increasing professionalisation of the women’s game, giving Charles the opportunity to learn more about the importance of nutrition and how to properly fuel her body.

"I think the last couple years for me personally, I've been exposed to it [nutrition] more by being in a professional environment, and also felt the benefits of it in myself from one game to the next," she said.

"I’ve known that I had a certain product and I felt a lot better, and I’ve had an interest in that.

"I think as the women's game progresses across the board, the supplements that are available and the resources that are now available will definitely help. In the last few years it has become a lot more common and a lot more normal."

For Barraclough, who describes working with a club the size of Chelsea FC as "massively exciting", the next step is to give amatuer athletes the chance to fuel like their sporting idols.

"We’ve got an app as well, that helps with meal planning and scheduling," she explained. "So the kind of role that a nutritionist is doing with the club. The idea is that the Blue Fuel app can do that for an amateur player.

"The mechanics of that are all there, but it would be good to get that into wider use as well really, it's a great free resource that anybody with this sort of interest can tap into."

As with the Chelsea players, the Blue Fuel app will not discriminate by gender, giving female athletes the chance to build a profile of themselves for their specific goals.

"That's the great thing we tried to tap into with the app," Barraclough said. "You can build a profile from a gender point of view, from a goal point of view, whether you're trying to lose weight, gain weight, manage weight, or build lean muscle. And dietary tolerances, things like that."

Thanks to Blue Fuel, amateur athletes around the world could soon be enjoying the same nutritional benefits as Charles and her teammates. Given Chelsea’s success in recent months, it would seem silly not to give it a try.

Blue Fuel aims to make elite sports nutrition available to everyone and has been developed with the teams, nutritionists and coaches at Chelsea FC. For more, www.bluefuel.com