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During the 120 minutes of the final, Bayern had 43 attempts on Chelsea's goal, while Chelsea had only 9 on Bayern's goal. Bayern had 20 corners, and Chelsea had 1. Bayern had 56% of the possession to Chelsea's 44%. It actually seemed a lot more in Bayern's favour during the game, but Chelsea got the ball a bit more to even it out in extra-time. People are saying fair play to Chelsea for winning it, and I will echo that, in part. I'm a die-hard United fan, but I definitely accept that if you are as lucky as Chelsea were last night to only concede 1 goal from 43 shots, bearing in mind that Bayern's finishing was one of the most pathetic I've ever seen in a professional football match, they still held out well, and did what they needed to on penalties to win. From the get-go, it seemed like Chelsea would sit 10 men behind the ball, leave Drogba up front alone, and get support to him in the form of Juan Mata, and hopefully catch Bayern on the counter-attack a few times and try make it count. That never happened. Not once in the entire match. During the game, as the stats above show, they didn't try to be too adventurous and sat 10 men behind the ball and just blocked everything...much like they did against Barcelona in the semi-finals. They seemed to be aiming to bring it to penalties from the referee's first whistle. It wasn't a very attractive final, by any means, but I doubt all the Chelsea fans are caring about that, as they've won the Champions League.
When it went to penalties, I knew inside myself that Chelsea would take it. Bayern bottled their chances during the game, and ultimately bottled their chances of winning the Champions League for a 5th time, and in front of their fans. The penalty shoot-out went Bayern's way originally, but then, like they did all match, they bottled it.
Here's how the penalties panned out:
Philipp Lahm stepped up first and scored. 1-0 to Bayern.
Juan Mata stepped up and Neuer saved. 1-0 to Bayern.
Mario Gómez stepped up and scored. 2-0 to Bayern.
David Luiz stepped up and scored. 2-1 to Bayern.
Manuel Neuer stepped up and scored. 3-1 to Bayern.
Frank Lampard stepped up and scored. 3-2 to Bayern.
Ivica Olić stepped up and Cech saved. 3-2 to Bayern.
Ashley Cole stepped up and scored. 3-3.
Bastian Schweinsteiger stepped up and Cech saved. 3-3.
Didier Drogba stepped up and scored. 4-3 to Chelsea, and they win.
I felt extremely sorry for Lahm and Schweinsteiger. They played immense throughout the game and deserve to be Champions League winners. I've always said for long periods of time, I would love to see both of them in United shirts, but I doubt that will ever happen. Both of them seemed shocked and heart-broken after the penalties. It's always a horrible way to lose a match, let alone a final, but I suppose, someone has to lose it. I would have felt the same way if United had of lost to Chelsea in Moscow in the Champions League final in 2008, but the actual fact was that United won, and that's all I cared about. I wanted Bayern to win it, but I'm not annoyed at Chelsea winning it. I'm more so, peeved that their a lot of their fans are fair-weather fans, who only came around when Abramovich bought and invested all his money in the club in June 2003. I know a fair few Chelsea fans, and I have good friendships with most of them, and they are all true Chelsea fans, but there are always hop-aboard-the-band-wagon fans at every club, and the Chelsea ones just irritate me. I wonder who they'll jump to next if they don't win anything next season? City probably.
After all I've said, the two main bits that actually irk me the most, and the main reason I started writing this post are the following two things; John Terry and Fernando Torres.
Firstly, let's start with John Terry. He nearly cost his team their place in the Champions League final by shoving his knee into the back Alexis Sanchez after 37 minutes. After that stupid sending off, Barca should have destroyed the 10 men of Chelsea, but simply couldn't do anything other than Plan A...pass. They needed to start taking shots from long range or get a bit more creative, but just couldn't. They were extremely one-dimensional, and that cost them. Regardless of Barca's failings, John Terry would miss the final through suspension. That, I don't mind. It's what happened on the night of the final. After Chelsea won, Terry got stripped into his full kit and took part in the celebrations after doing being an idiot during the semi-final (and most of his career, might I add) and being suspended for the final. I thought it was pathetic that he joined in the celebrations, when he could have cost his team everything. It just shows that he thinks of himself more than the team, and it's always John Terry first, Chelsea second. Pathetic attitude to have from a captain of the club. He should have stayed off the pitch and let the players who earned their place in the final by beating Barcelona after he was sent off, and who earned the trophy by beating Bayern, celebrate together, as he had no part in them winning the trophy.
The second thing that irks me was that I woke up to this, this morning. Torres moaning. Hold on a second. You've just won the Champions League, and less than 14 hours later, you're moaning in the post match press conference. Okay, fair enough, you could be sad and annoyed about not starting last night, but did he deserve to? No. He went on about not getting exactly what he was promised when he was asked to sign for Chelsea. The actual nerve of that lad. His team wins the champions league, and goes moaning the morning after. His goal-scoring record since signing for Chelsea from Liverpool 18 months ago for £50 million, is 12 goals in 64 games, and only 7 of those being premier league goals. He'll definitely go down as the biggest premier league flop.
Here is the extract from the conference:
"It’s contradictory because I feel like I’m at a peak moment in my career, with more desire and hunger than I’ve felt in a long time, but I’ve had to spend the final on the bench. It was a huge disappointment when I saw the line-up, perhaps the biggest in my life. This season I have felt things that I never had before. I’ve felt like they treated me in a way that I didn’t expect... not in the way that was spoken of when they signed me. We’ve had a lot of talks and we’ll talk about my future, because the role I’ve had this season is not for me, nor is it the one I expected to play when I came here. I’m not comfortable. I want them to tell me what is going to happen in the future. Football has been fair on us, on me. Now I do feel like football is worth it but I’ve been through a difficult time. The worst in my career. I don't want that again. There’s been many times when I’ve felt lost, I wasn’t sure what to do. I felt like I didn’t know where I belonged. I’m eternally grateful to my family who have been by my side and also for the support of the owners who have stuck by me. And especially to the fans, if it hadn’t been for them this season I would have given up. I need the club to tell me what is going to happen and what sort of role I will have within the team, what my duties are, and what the club expects of me. And then judge whether it is worth it."
Sounds like he's off back to Spain to me. He wants an out, and I think he'll take this. Go out with the Champions League win under his belt, although he did absolutely nothing to win it for his team. Yes, he may have scored against Barcelona to wrap up the tie in the second leg, but what many people fail to realise / remember is that Barcelona were about 20 seconds away from being knocked out, regardless of Torres' goal, because Ramires' earlier goal was going to send Chelsea through and Barcelona out anyway. Drogba will stay at Chelsea after his performance, his crucial goal and his winning penalty last night. He'll get a big money contract for 2 more years, which will mean Torres won't stick around and will be sold back to Spain because of Drogba staying. They will probably sell Torres for a loss, and they'll get £20 - £30 million for him, and everyone will be better for it.
