Chelsea Finally Come Alive in the Champions League with Schalke Rout

What is the distance in miles between London and Gelsenkirchen?

If we ask Google, 400.

Multiply that figure by the five goals Chelsea put past Schalke on Tuesday night, and you're still not even close to the difference between these two teams.

Jose Mourinho's side were mesmerizing in Germany, putting in their best display of the campaign to qualify for the last 16 of the Champions League with a game to spare.

Indeed, it's been a long time coming, and now Chelsea have finally arrived in Europe this season.

We've been waiting in anticipation for Diego Costa and the rest to give us a performance that shows they are serious contenders—and winning 5-0; this was it.

Mourinho was purring on the back of the weekend's Premier League victory against West Bromwich Albion, a game in which his team dominated from beginning to end with some breathtaking football.

Facing Schalke—and former coach Roberto Di Matteo no less—this was different: Chelsea upped the ante.

Whereas Chelsea had toyed with the Baggies at Stamford Bridge, on Tuesday they meant serious business.

They were ruthless, going for the jugular in unrelenting fashion—they were everything you would expect from a side with Champions League aspirations.

Eden Hazard was a nuisance, while Oscar and goalscorer Willian drove right through the heart of Schalke's rearguard with ease. It was knife through butter stuff.

Mourinho was understandably thrilled with the way in which his side humiliated their former manager.

"[My players] played a fantastic match. In this moment the team is very mature, is very confident," the Chelsea boss told the Sky Sports cameras.

"Obviously, to win 5-0 in the Champions League away is not normal."

As we're continuing to see in 2014/15, this current Chelsea crop don't sit inside the parameters of normality, either.

A pundit in the Sky studios, ex-Blues midfielder Michael Ballack described Schalke's display as very "un-German." Chelsea's was very un-Mourinho.

What we're used to seeing from the Portuguese's teams is what came on Saturday against West Brom. Mourinho teams kill their opposition early and then squeeze the life out of games.

Porto did it, Chelsea did it in his initial spell as manager and so too did Inter Milan. Real Madrid did to a certain degree, but with their expectations and inflated opinions, it wasn't always accepted protocol.

At Chelsea now, Mourinho circa 2014 is a different beast.

He has crafted a team from individuals.

Chelsea had talent in abundance when he returned, but there wasn't the craft in place to make the team gel into a serious contender for major honours.

It took him a year to find the formula, and now Mourinho's principles have produced an animal that appears all the more ferocious than the raging bull he left behind when he departed Chelsea under a cloud in 2007.

Chelsea can still squeeze games, they can scrap for points when the time calls for it. Only now, they don't have to.

They're playing teams off the park, working triangles through them and bringing the substance that will win games.

It's a mystery as to why it's taken so long for us to witness it on the continent this term, yet better late than never.

Schalke was game No. 19 for the Blues this season, and still no side has come close defeating them. Will anyone?

It certainly won't be Di Matteo's Schalke on this evidence, who are now relying on Chelsea to defeat Sporting Lisbon on Matchday 6 to give them a chance of progressing.

His last match as Chelsea boss ended in a 2-0 defeat to Juventus in the same competition two years ago. This result was arguably more humbling, giving Di Matteo the unenviable managerial record against his former club of P2 L2 F0 A11.

It was August 2010 when Chelsea thrashed Di Matteo's West Brom 6-0. The Blues were starting the season as double winners that year, clearly with a spring in their step.

Four years on, they seem to have more, and if their form continues like this, who knows what they'll be celebrating come May.

Garry Hayes is Bleacher Report's lead Chelsea correspondent. All quotes were obtained firsthand unless otherwise noted. Follow him on Twitter @garryhayes