When I look back at Chelsea’s Champions League heartbreaks over the last nine years, I have often suggested to anyone who will listen that that last gasp defeat to Barcelona at Stamford Bridge in 2009 was the worst of all the near-misses and gut-wrenching disappointments. That was, of course, until about 10.27pm last night when it hit home that Chelsea were once again on the verge of losing the Champions League- Europe’s richest club prize- on penalty kicks.
Juan Mata had missed a third consecutive spot kick in Chelsea colours and Bayern, in front of their home fans, had established a 3-1 advantage in the penalty contest. Surely, after all the brushes with death in this year’s competition, could be no escape this time. And like a romantic who has had his heart broken one too many times, the memories of 21st May 2008 came flooding back.
Four years ago I sat in my student house on the eve of an ill-fated Land Law exam, having already convinced myself that 2008 was going to work out to be Manchester United’s year. I am not, as you might gather, the most positive of Blues supporters.
Back then my negativity appeared justified. United had toppled us in the league and in Moscow, dominated the early exchanges, scoring early through a Cristiano Ronaldo header before dominating the rest of interminable fist half. Frank Lampard, somehow, was fortunate enough to be in the right place at the right time to level things up just before the break but you couldn’t feel positive about Chelsea’s chances.
Strangely, the Blues had the best of the rest of the game- hitting the woodwork twice in extra-time- before the bitter taste of penalty kicks and THAT slip from John Terry. In fact when Ronaldo failed to beat Petr Cech from the spot, I managed to break a broom in two in my excitement. Alas, these advantages are fragile and within five minutes Clive Tyldesley cried: “van der Sar saves it, United again!” and the dream was over.
The rest of the night was swallowed up in floods of jubilant Facebook messages from United fans, the most poisonous BLT sandwich I have ever tasted and the sudden realisation that in my football obsessed state I had neglected to study at least 70% of the syllabus for the Law exam only seven hours away. It was not my best night.
Fast forward four years and in a not dissimilar haze I came across the very same grey tracksuit that I had worn that night in Moscow. Well, OK, not that I was in Moscow in 2008 but in any case it felt prophetic. How about wearing the same clothes to help break the hex and see Chelsea over the line? Stuart Pearce I was not but at that moment the decision to dig out those old garments seemed the least I could do.
As in previous years I had been invited to a friend’s house to watch the game but I knew if the match was tight, which it was surely destined to be, I may well not have been palatable company. So, a solo trip to a pub where I knew no one inside was the answer. Anti-social, yes, but in those moments you feel that everything you do needs to be right if your side are to come out on top.
The decision to watch games of this sort on my own have often been my policy, particularly since I had to explain to a then paramour that the Argentine television graphics of Chelsea’s last 16 defeat to Inter Milan in 2010 did not mean that Didier Drogba was going to be playing in goal.
My establishment of choice was pretty quiet. In fact the sterile atmosphere of the game was reflected only in the seeming indifference of the publicans. The only moment of passion seemed to come when I let out a frantic gasp at David Luiz, who had slipped out of position, and one middle-aged gentleman asked, quite threateningly, if I was a Tottenham fan. Obviously not.
When Thomas Muller nodded in Bayern’s opener with little over seven minutes on the clock, I felt much like how Arsenal fans must have felt after Juliano Belletti’s late winner for Barcelona in the 2006 final. Their ‘destined’ triumph was cut off at the death- surely the German forward had just done the same to Chelsea.
Of course, if there was to be a way back, it had to be Didier Drogba to save the day and halt the celebrations of Bayern and Tottenham fans everywhere. His blunderbuss header was, in truth, Chelsea’s only real clear-cut opening of the match but it came in the nick of time.
Even as we entered extra-time, the docile pub dwellers may have written the game off as a Chelsea moment of destiny, but I was climbing the walls. As Drogba gave away his second Champions League penalty in two games, a bearded man from a table of bemused French watchers waved a nonchalant hand at my pained cries and simply said: “Messi, Messi!”
And by the beard of John Spencer he was right. Arjen Robben bottled a penalty kick when at Chelsea during the 2007 semi-final shootout against Liverpool at Anfield, and the Dutchman hadn’t learnt any greater composure in the five years that had since slipped by. Cech fell to his left and made a relatively straightforward stop.
“Everyone stay calm!” I shouted, not realising that I, of course, was the most animated of the swelling crowd. The spectre of penalties, I reminded myself and everyone within earshot, was not one Chelsea were likely to respond well to.
“Remember Charlton!” I bellowed- a reference to a Carling Cup penalty exit in 2005 that I’m not even sure the players involved in remember.
As an English Chelsea fan the shootout was the first to go the way I’d wanted- two League Cup campaigns aside- since Rafael Nadal’s uncle, Miguel Angel, failed at Wembley for Spain during Euro 96- it has been a long 16 years.
Thankfully I couldn’t hear Gary Neville do his best to jinx Drogba as he made his way to the penalty spot for his moment of truth else I might have flown to Munich and throttled the newest member of the England coaching staff. Still, I was convinced there was to be a sting in the tail. Mercifully, there wasn’t.
Within seconds I was involved in a seven man hug with a set of complete strangers before leaping around like a Jack-in-the-box on hallucinogenic drugs. Football shouldn’t mean this much, but it does.
On my way out I popped into a 24 hour shop to pick up some food. This time, I am pleased to report, I ignored the strategically placed BLT and went for something a bit harder. And the tracksuit? A bit like Drogba, it might have some life it in yet.
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