Stamford Bridge welcomes in a new season : Picture by @YTJourno
A sun-kissed homecoming for the champions of the world - Gianni Infantino's world at any rate - and a day out for now-serial trophy winners Crystal Palace. In theory, this was quite a dish to serve up on day one. In reality, it was a bit of a dud.
Chelsea fans got to see some of those shiny new names in competitive action for the first time, but it was all about cameos and promise rather than the hard currency of goals and winning margins. For Palace, this was a satisfying shut-out and a fine follow up to last weekend's equally defiant resistance of Liverpool at Wembley.
With more sympathetic officials, they would have won it too, as VAR came to Chelsea's rescue 13 minutes in to deny us a blistering first goal of the season from Eberechi Eze.
The Palace midfielder blasted through a gap in the wall after Marc Cucurella's foul on Will Hughes had gifted a free hit from a central position just outside the area.
But ref Darren England agreed with the alert he received from Stockley Park that Moises Caicedo had been manhandled out of a blocking position by Marc Guehi. It looked a really harsh judgement with the contact no different from most tussles in the box.
The Eagles refused to let the disappointment deflate them and soon Adam Warton's typically delicate pass played in Jean-Philippe Mateta for a firm strike Robert Sanchez had to get behind.
The Blues struggled to create big openings and seemed almost subdued - as if the USA escapade in the summer really had taken a toll. But the vibe was mostly decent for them and it rose several notches when much-heralded 18-year-old Brazilian Estevao came on for his debut in place of Jamie Gittens - another of the components of an expensively-assembled coterie of players making a first competitive start in Chelsea blue.
His first touches saw him take on the Palace defence down the right and float a pass that was just too high for Pedro Neto and he fired just over with a snatched attempt after getting on the end of a cross in from the left.
Liam Delap came on for a quiet Joao Pedro and had one good opening that he scuffed straight at Dean Henderson and fellow sub Andrey Santos skied horribly after ghosting unmarked into the box.
At the other end, Eze tried his luck from distance that did not really trouble Sanchez unduly.
It pretty much summed up the nature of the contest on the whole, which served as a reminder that Palace badly need to resist attempts to prise Eze away from them and that for all Chelsea's big spending and trophy-gathering, they are still a work in progress and not perhaps creating the number of chances they will need to if a sustained title push is to be made.
Early days of course, though, and for Palace the next stop is European football on Thursday against Fredrikstad - which will be fun even if it isn't to be in the Europa League.
**Blues:** (4-2-3-1) Sanchez - James (Gusto 79), Acheampong, Chalobah, Cucurella - Caicedo, Fernandez (Santos 79) - Pedro Neto, Palmer, Gittens (Estevao 54) - Joao Pedro (Delap 73)
**Eagles:** (3-4-2-1) Henderson - Richards. Lacroix, Guehi - Munoz, Wharton, Hughes (Lerma 70), Mitchell - Sarr, Eze (Devenny 84) - Mateta