Archives For chelsea

Chelsea Finally Wins The Champions League

20 May 2012

What a season it’s been for football. First the dramas at Manchester for the English title decider and now Chelsea displays a masterclass performance full of grit and never say die attitude to finally hand Roman Abramovich his first Champions League title since taking over the club in 2002.

Bayern Munich was definitely the better team throughout and I was Whatsapping Jeremy and Sonti feverishly discussing about what’s going on in the match and I told Jeremy that for some weird reason, I think Chelsea was going to win. He was gunning for Munich to beat Chelsea so his beloved Spurs could play Champions League football next season.

And when Thomas Muller scored in the 86 minute, it seemed like all was going well for Jeremy’s Spurs and Bayern Munich. Muller was substituted off for defender Van Buyten soon after and it was clear Munich wanted to protected their lead for the last couple of minutes for the match.

By this time, Torres was brought on for Kalou by Chelsea and the 50 million pound striker did well to win a corner for the Blues.

Mata swings the corner in and Drogba powered a header past the flapping Neuer in the 88th minute. Game on!

Torres had been getting much flack since moving from Liverpool last year but his form has been improving in the last couple of months and his most telling contribution to this match was winning Chelsea’s FIRST corner in contrast to Munich’s 15 corners.

It must now seem silly of Bayern coach Jupp Heynckes to take Muller off and when the camera was on Muller looking bewildered at the turn of events, it certainly brought back memories of the 1999 final when Lothar Matthaus was substituted off and having the same look after Manchester United staged one of the greatest comebacks to snatch the title from within Munich’s grasp.

Chelsea didn’t manage quite a similar comeback but with Drogba’s goal, brought the game into extra time and boy was more drama to come.

Early in the first half of extra time, Drogba, hero for Chelsea so far, brought Ribery down in the Chelsea box and Munich was award a penalty. It seem like that was the end of the road for Chelsea but when Cech stepped up to save Robben’s penalty, a sense of self belief swept through the entire Chelsea team.

They held on through the second half of extra time and the match went into penalties.

Ivan Olic and Sebastian Schweinsteiger missed their penalties and Drogba took Chelsea’s last penalty to win the cup for the Blues and send the stadium into raptures.

I’m absolutely delight for Chelsea and even though Bayern Munich played the better football, their inefficiency with their finish definitely cost them the match.

Cissé Scores Wonder Goal, City Up Next

4 May 2012

There were lots of action in the footballing world overnight with Real Madrid sealing up it’s title with a 3-0 win over Athletic Bilbao but all headlines seem to point towards the match between Chelsea and Newcastle.

Chelsea had their season revived under Di Matteo, reaching both the FA and Champions League finals, and it seems like their form in the league has started to pick up as well until Newcastle brought them crashing back down to earth again condemning them to a 2-0 defeat.

Newcastle was beaten by relegation fighting Wigan 4-0 last week will aim to regain their recent impressive form to secure a Champions League spot next season. It’s fair to say that have done pretty well against this season’s finalist.

Papa Cissé, a January signing for Newcastle, amazingly scored his 12th and 13th premier league goals against Chelsea to condemn them to a 2-0 defeat. Cissé accomplished this astonishing feat after only arriving at Tyneside 4 months ago and he is starting to be a cult hero among Toon fans with his scoring prowess.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JW-ckrXBszU

You have no idea how hard is it to find YouTube videos of the first goal because YouTube is FLOODED with uploads of his second goal.

His first goal was definitely reminisce of a Thiery Henry goal scored against Manchester United with Barthez in goal a couple of years back but the quality of  Cissé’s strike was definitely worth the 10 million pounds Newcastle paid SC Freiburg for.

Can’t say Liverpool got the same value when they paid Newcastle 35 million pounds for Andy Carroll and his pony tail.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ne1IKt-N47Q

No words can describe the confidence he had went he sent the ball swerving and dipping past the bewildered Cech for his second goal in the game. Definitely the goal of the season (Suarez who?) for me thus far.

Now all we need is for Newcastle to repeat this performance against Manchester City and we’re gold.

Epic UCL Semi Final Match Between Barcelona and Chelsea

25 April 2012
Messi

It’s ANZAC Day today so I got the day off work and it just so happens that it coincided with the first 2nd leg semi-final of the Champions League match between Barcelona and Chelsea. I wasn’t really looking forward to this match to tell the truth (My blood bleeds Red Devils) but I was sure glad I did.

Barcelona was peppering the Chelsea goal the moment the match started and after going down one nil in the first leg at Stamford Bridge, it was obvious Pep Guardiola wanted to get the goals early with a fairly offensive formation.

Things were going swell for Barcelona when they scored in the 35th minute from a Busquets tap in. They got the goal they so desperately wanted and it seems things are finally going Barcelona’s way after their last two defeats to Chelsea and Real Madrid.

Chelsea was trying to cling on to dear life after losing Cahill to an injury early on but things got worse when captain Terry was shown a red card for an inconspicuous knee jab into Alexis Sanchez’s back.

One nil down and one man down, Barcelona wasted no time in taking advantage. Two mins after Terry was sent off, Messi sent Iniesta clear with a deft through ball and Iniesta wasted no time slotting the ball home to bring Barcelona into a two nil lead (2-1 on aggregate).

Chelsea looked clueless after losing their captain and seemed like they need to move into damage control to avoid any embarrassment. But in a weird twist of fate, Lampard managed to put Ramires through on goal and he delicately chipped the ball over Valdes to bring the score to 2-1 with an advantage to Chelsea on the away goals rule.

By now, all the hard work the Barcelona players have produced were undone and the silence in the Camp Nou was deafening.

The second half pretty much started like the first half and Barcelona was award a penalty two minutes in after Drogba tripped Fabregas in the box but Messi – who has been blamed in the media for his lack of form recently – smashed his kick against the crossbar.

Barcelona continued to pile on the pressure with all ten Chelsea players defending, the Barcelona players are finding it hard to penetrate the organized Chelsea defence even with their slick passing.

Chelsea would have gone through to the finals if the score stood at 2-1 but substitute Torres – who came on for the tireless Drogba – managed to latch onto a clearance unmarked and rounded Valdes to score.

By now it was game set and match. Chelsea was definitely through to the finals and Barcelona, who seemed invincible in recent years, succumbed to an organized Chelsea side.

I was also looking at tweets that were being fired up on Twitter and was actually quite surprised to find out that @BradBlanks, the Hollywood reporter for @HamishandAndy was actually watching the match in New York as well and he was tweet replying me and followed me on Twitter after the match!

But the funniest tweet has to definitely go to @RobbieSavage8 with him having a go at “fat” Ronaldo’s diet/weight when he saw a tweet from @Persie_Official.

And to round this post off, I’ll leave you with Gary Neville’s orgasmic celebrations after Torres scores the last goal for Chelsea. Oh what a morning it has been. God I love football.