After a remarkable night of football seen by millions across the world many
Chelsea fans will inevitably be waking up with very sore heads. The Champions
League final didn't, for the majority of regulation time anyway, provide much
of a spectacle. What happened after the 80th minute however was football at its most delightful.
Bayern managed 43 shots across the course of the evening,
by even their standards 43 is a ludicrous amount. Bayern averaged 15.7 shots
per match in the 11/12 domestic season so they were gifted over 2.5 times more
chances than normal. Frank Lampard was the Chelsea player who had the most
touches of the ball with 97, which was bettered by 4 Bayern Munich players. With
56% of ball possession (with 44% of the games total play occurring within the
Chelsea half) and a pass accuracy of 87% (only Barcelona averaged higher than
this in all of Europe's top 5 leagues last season), Bayern were certainly on
top. But if you watched the game you don't need the statistics to tell you that
Chelsea were on the back foot. It was, defensively anyway, a glorious
performance from Chelsea. Their shape, as shown by their average positions
across the night below, was nigh on flawless.
On only one occasion can I recall Chelsea being caught
out seriously due to poor positioning, and that was a defensive lapse by Ashley
Cole (and possibly Malouda) to allow Mueller a free header at the back post to
score Bayern's goal. Of the 43 attempts on goal by the Munich team 22 were
blocked by Chelsea players. 14 of the 22 blocks were by either Bosingwa,
Cahill, Luiz or Cole, who performed impressively whilst having to remain
disciplined all night.
Chelsea were aided by poor finishing from the
"home" side though. Of the 21 shots which managed to make it past a
Chelsea player only 7 were on target. The shooting of Arjen Robben was
particularly poor, with only 5 of his attempted 15 shots testing the glorious
Petr Cech. Mario Gomes had an equally as poor night, penned by many as the man
who would win the final for Bayern, he was unable to test Cech all night. In
total Gomez managed 5 shots all night and none on target, a far cry from the
form she showed in the rest of the Champions League this season. Were Bayern
Munich to have finished as they normally would have then it goes without saying
that a different name would be on the trophy.
In the 53rd minute Bayern did have the ball in the back of the Chelsea net, but Franck Ribery adjudged to have been offside, a decision which replays suggested was correct, but tight none the less. Were the goal to have stood Chelsea would have been aggrieved, but worse decisions have been made in big games this season (Juan Mata'a ghost goal in the FA cup semi-final against Spurs a brilliant example).
In the 83rd minute Thomas Mueller broke the deadlock when he was afforded a free header at Chelsea's back post. Similarly to how Jamie Mackie scored against City in the boring Premier League final day Mueller headed the ball into the ground and it looped over Petr Cech and into the net. The joy in Mueller's celebration was obvious to see, he thought that he had just won the Champions League final for his team.
When Didier Drogba headed in the equaliser in the 88th
minute it appeared, as Gary Neville said, "written in the stars".
After the goal Munich did seem flustered for the rest of the first 90 minutes
plus injury time. They had already sent on the man mountain Van Buyten to
assist them in seeing out the game, showing that they didn't expect Chelsea to
sucker punch them.
Going into extra time it still seemed that if the game were
to be settled from open play it would be Bayern Munich lifting the trophy. It
was simply a case of could Chelsea hold on? And Drogba seemed to answer that
question for us after 5 minutes. Having given away a penalty in their
semi-final second leg Drogba once again felled an opposition attacker. It
seemed certain that a player of Arjen Robben's technique and quality would
manage to do what Messi had failed in the semi and score the penalty. But a
combination of a poor hit by Robben and a correct guess by Cech kept the score
level. At this point I was thinking "if there is a god, he is a Chelsea
fan". The rest of extra time passed without incident, meaning Chelsea had
to better their performance in the 2008 Moscow final penalty shoot out and they
would become the 5th English team to lift the EC/CL trophy.
Just as they had in the match Chelsea went the hard route
through the penalty shoot out. After Mata's missed penalty it seemed once again
inevitable that Bayern Munich would win the trophy. Alas fantastic penalties by
Luiz, Lampard and Cole meant that the miss by Olic put the two teams level with
one spot kick left each. One peculiar moment during the penalty shoot out was
Manuel Neur stepping up to take a penalty. Whilst Bayern's reserve keeper Butt
is renown as a penalty taking goal keeper Neur has no such reputation, none the
less he held his nerve and despatched the penalty expertly. Then a rare penalty
miss from 27 year old Schweinsteiger, who has been at Bayern Munich since 1998,
allowed Drogba to score the final penalty for Chelsea and seal the win for the
first ever Champions League winning team from London.
It was a night which defied all logic. Every statistic
suggests that Chelsea should have lost by a cricket score, but on the night the
stars aligned in such a way that allowed the underdogs (written off by Kelvin
pre-match) to lift the trophy. That raises the question, if the 6th best team
from England are the best team in Europe and the top two English teams aren't
even able to progress to the business end of the Europa League, what on earth
will happen next year? But for now it is time to catch my breath after a truly
incredible end to the season in preparation for Euro 2012.
By Alex Pointon
Follow me on twitter - @Jewfrochamp
