Earlier this year, Carlo Cudicini was asked a simple question that was far from easy to answer.

‘What was your best performance in a Chelsea shirt?’

The passage of time dictates that memories fade, but those that linger burn the brightest. You could almost see Cudicini whirring through his 200-plus games for the Blues, from his debut in August 1999 to his final appearance for us nearly ten years later.

Eventually, he settled on a ‘game at Sunderland, a goalless draw’. For a man who represented Chelsea with such distinction – in high-profile Premier League games, FA Cup finals, Champions League classics – a 0-0 at the Stadium of Light on a wintry December afternoon might be considered an inauspicious response.

Watch back the highlights, though, and you get the sense of a goalkeeper at the very top of his game. Kevin Phillips, one of the Premier League’s top strikers at the turn of the century, is denied on three occasions, including from the penalty spot followed by an improbable save with the Italian’s feet from a few yards out.

‘It was probably related more to feeling than anything else,’ Cudicini, now Chelsea’s head of talent and pathways, tells us at Cobham this week when we enquire about that Sunderland performance.

‘Most of the time, a player or a keeper’s performance is just judged on whether he scores or saves, but I think it’s more related to what the feeling was during the game. And that day, there was just no way they were scoring a goal.

‘That was the feeling I probably developed throughout the game, after making the first save. It’s all about momentum. And as well I loved to play away, because you get the feeling the opponents keep coming, you keep saving, and the supporters get frustrated because it’s like going up against a wall.’

Cudicini can recall only a handful of occasions throughout his career when he felt truly unbeatable. The Sunderland game 25 years ago was one of them, and an important factor behind Cudicini’s inner belief that he would not concede was the way he got in Phillips’ head.

‘A big part of being a goalkeeper is the psychological battle with the striker, without a doubt,’ Cudicini explains.

‘If on one side you feel unbeatable, on the other you frustrate the striker who can only say: “What do I have to do?”

‘That gets in their mind. They can overthink it and there’s a component in there saying: “Maybe I’m trying too hard to score.”’

Cudicini remembers a sense of personal pride and satisfaction with his performance at the Stadium of Light, but in the context of the season, it was two points dropped. Claudio Ranieri’s Blues had aspirations of finishing in the top four. Unfortunately, inconsistency continued to plague us.

A week prior to the Sunderland game, we took the champions Manchester United apart at Old Trafford, a clinic of counter-attacking football securing a famous 3-0 success. But that was followed by a 1-0 loss at home to lowly Charlton, and then the goalless draw on Wearside. The next weekend, we thrashed top-of-the-table Liverpool 4-0.

Cudicini saved yet another penalty in that game, this time from Gary McAllister. His stop from Darren Bent’s spot-kick the following April means he is a member of an exclusive club to have saved a record three penalties in a single Premier League season.

‘Obviously you need a bit of luck, but there were probably two main points to my penalty record,’ reflects Cudicini, who would deny Ruud van Nistelrooy and Thierry Henry from 12 yards later in his Chelsea career.

‘One was my characteristics as a goalkeeper. Not being the tallest meant I was very elastic, very springy, very reactive, and with penalties you need that, because a centimetre can be the difference.

‘At the same time, I did a lot of research at a time when we didn’t have data, like a goalkeeper coach coming in the day before the match saying, “Those are where he took the last ten penalties”. I played at the wrong time for that!

‘I started the work during pre-season, watching every friendly where a lot of times it finished with penalties. I would take notes. Then, during the season, I would watch every episode of Match of the Day, looking at the penalties, what minute they were in, the scoreline, where it was going.

‘So I was going into games having my philosophy around that, based on research I had done, and that year it worked brilliantly.’

The 2001/02 campaign culminated with Cudicini becoming just the fourth goalkeeper to win the Chelsea Player of the Season award. That was no mean feat, partly because Jimmy Floyd Hasselbaink and Eidur Gudjohnsen formed a deadly strike partnership that year, scoring a remarkable 52 goals between them.

Not only that, but Cudicini didn’t actually establish himself in the Chelsea starting XI until two weeks before the draw at Sunderland. A pre-season injury handed Ed de Goey a place back between the posts on the opening day, and then when the Dutchman’s form dipped, Ranieri turned to Mark Bosnich. It wasn’t until he tore a thigh muscle late on in a goalless draw at Goodison Park that Cudicini was handed his chance. It was one he grabbed with both hands, registering six clean sheets in his first seven games back, not least because of that pair of penalty saves in consecutive weeks.

‘I was disappointed because I thought I’d done enough the season before to start again when I was fit. Mark had a couple of good games, so I understood that, but I was disappointed.

‘I was training very well and thinking that surely it had to change. As a goalkeeper, you either play or you don’t. You can’t come on for 20 minutes. But when Mark got injured, I stepped in. That’s how it works for goalkeepers.

‘I remember I had such huge energy after the Everton game. I came on for Mark and made a good save right at the end to keep it 0-0. All that frustration at not playing built up, and then that good energy and good feeling from the game brought me momentum.’

Cudicini’s presence between the posts proved pivotal in the Blues securing a sixth-placed finish and with it, European football for the following campaign.

We did well in the domestic cups, too, reaching the semi-finals of the League Cup and then the final of the FA Cup. Alas, our north London rivals put paid to our hopes of silverware, but our No.23 did still end the season with a trophy in his hands.

‘The Player of the Year didn’t exist at that time in Italy,’ Cudicini says.

‘I remember my first year when I joined Chelsea, and there was the Player of the Year, and I was asking Roberto [Di Matteo], Gianfranco [Zola], obviously Italian guys: "What is this all about?”

‘They explained to me, so I understood its importance. So when I was awarded one, it was a great honour. I was really proud of the relationship that I managed to build with the fans.

‘Personally, that season was probably the most important in my career at Chelsea,' adds Cudicini.

'Coming from Castel di Sangro for £150,000, being alone, not playing at the start, it was all the build-up to that season.

‘A lot of it was down to my relationship with the fans, I think. Coming from Italy, you're passionate, so you get agitated, you get upset, you celebrate with the fans. That was the bond we had.’

As much as memories fade, the image of Cudicini clenching his fists and roaring with joy after saving a penalty will live in Chelsea supporters’ minds for a long while yet.