Chelsea Reach Final Against All Odds

by Dugald Skene

It's a funny old game.

Whatever the game was that inspired those words, it surely wasn't as dramatic, incident packed and downright thrilling as last night’s Champions League semi-final second leg between holders and tournament favourites Barcelona and Chelsea. The result was a draw, the fourth consecutive time Chelsea have achieved that at the Camp Nou, but it was enough to see Chelsea through after their first leg victory.

Frank Lampard leads celebrations after Chelsea's victory

The score is incidental in many ways.  What happened on the pitch was extraordinary.

The first 15 minutes saw both Chelsea’s Gary Cahill (hamstring) and Barcelona’s Gerard Pique (head knock) taken off after separate incidents.  With one half of the Londoner’s centre pairing gone and the only legitimate centre half from Barca’s back 3 gone, there was suddenly opportunity on both sides to expose the gaps.  Bosingwa joined at right back, pushing Ivanovic in to cover with John Terry, while Pep Guardiola replaced Pique with Dani Alves, pushing the vertically challenged Javier Mascherano in as the central figure in a lightweight defence.

With the vast majority of defending to do in the game, as they expected, the reshuffle was always a bigger blow for Chelsea.  Cahill had been a stalwart at the heart of defence and was creating a strong partnership with Terry.

Down 1-0 from a week ago, at home and with most of the 90,000+ crowd behind them, Barca had their customary 70% possession and started to assert themselves on Chelsea.  The defensive resolve almost inevitably broke when surprise inclusion Isaac Cuenca popped upon the left hand side to thread a ball along the 6 yard line, behind Messi, behind Xavi but knocked in by Sergio Busquets at the far post.  1-1 in the tie and Barca were in the driving seat.  When Busquets scores his 2^nd goal in 2 years, you know things might be going against you.

It seemed almost inescapable that they would kick on, and those fears for Chelsea fans became all the more real when minutes later Lionel Messi slipped through a tidy pass to Andres Iniesta who calmly stroked the ball past Petr Cech.  2-0 on the night, 2-1 aggregate.

With 5 minutes until half time, it already looked improbable for Chelsea but in a moment of madness, captain John Terry decided to make things a whole lot worse for his team in a phenomenal display of stupidity as he raised his knee, striking Alexis Sanchez in the lower back, completely off the ball.

Not spotted by the Turkish referee, the linesman advised on the appropriate action and soon the red card was out.  Nobody saw the incident in real time, but replays revealed the enormity of Terry’s inanity.  It was the correct call.  2-1 down and down to 10 men.  Could it get any worse for Chelsea?

Well, no. Somehow, things took a turn.  Just as you expected Barcelona to capitalise on their man advantage, it was Chelsea who broke free, the excellent Frank Lampard sending through the fantastic Ramires who calmly and nonchalantly chipped Victor Valdes to put Chelsea back in front on aggregate just before half time.

The second half was always going to be about whether Chelsea’s 10 men could hold out for the win. They did themselves no favours when within the first 2 minutes of the restart, Didier Drogba brought down Cesc Fabregas in the box.  There was minimal contact and Fabregas certainly made the best of it, taking a leaf from Drogba’s own book.  The game was over now, right?

Wrong.  Messi inexplicably missed the resultant penalty kick, striking the crossbar.  The pivotal moment in the game, and suddenly you started to wonder if it was Chelsea’s night after all.  With 40 minutes to play, it still seemed so unlikely.

It’s not often that we get a chance to criticise Barcelona’s brand of football, but the second half last night provided plenty of evidence to suggest that they are a bit more one dimensional than you might think, and certainly when their backs are to the wall, they start to run out of ideas.  With the likes of Messi, Xavi and Iniesta, we all expect magic to happen, goals to come from nowhere and unlimited creativity.  It just didn’t happen.  I lost count of the number of times Xavi, permanently fixed in the ‘quarterback’ position just outside the D of Chelsea’s penalty box, would spread it out to the right to Dani Alves who not once put a creditable cross into the box.

With the minutes ticking away, the neutrals amongst us started to think that Chelsea might just do it. In the final moments of the game, it was replacement and much maligned striker Torres who had the final say of the game as he picked up a speculative Ashley Cole clearance with only Valdes between him and the goal and acres of space in which to run.  Given his form for Chelsea, nothing was a given, but he duly rounded the helpless Barca keeper and netted the finish.  Game over. Chelsea are in the UEFA Champions League Final.

 

As spectacular a result as it was, it has come at a price.  Bookings for Ramires, Meireles, Ivanovic and the red for John Terry all mean they will miss the final.  With Terry in particular will be distraught after his 2008 final experience as we won’t have the opportunity to make amends.  But as mentioned, he made his bed and despite his ridiculous halftime claim that it was accidental and Sanchez backed into him, he finally came to his senses after realising it was all caught on camera.  

So who will face Chelsea in the final?  Few would bet against a tasty match up with Real Madrid and former coach Jose Mourinho, but Real have it all to do tonight against Bayern Munich to make that happen. 

Whatever happens, Chelsea’s achievements in Barcelona will go down in folklore, and rightly so.  They have knocked off one of the greatest teams in living memory and if they can do that, who knows what might happen in Munich in May.