It was never supposed to end like this. On December 16, 2011 when UEFA held the draw for the knock-out stage of the 2011-2012 Champions League, every soccer fan worldwide immediately came to the same realization. We were going to get an El Clasico in the final. On May 19th we were going to get Messi vs Ronaldo, Guardiola vs Mourinho, Catalonia vs Spain. The greatest club competition in soccer was going to finish with the greatest rivalry in the sport between the (allegedly) two best club teams. It was going to be perfect. And yet it wasn’t. First, on April 17th Mario Gomez’ goal in the 90th minute gave Bayern Munich an unexpected victory over Real Madrid and then one day later Chelsea managed to upset Barcelona in the other semi-final with a Drogba goal that came very much against the run of play. However even after the first leg of both semis the public and the media wrote them off, calling them minor speed bumps on the inevitable collision course between Real and Barca. And with both second legs being played in Spain, it was hard to argue.
Just six days after Chelsea managed to stun Barcelona in London they travelled to the Nou Camp in what everyone believed to be the end of English hopes in the Champions league. After 43 minutes of play, everyone seemed justified in their claims and the little part inside of me that had hoped for a miracle had all but faded away. Barcelona was up 2-0 with what felt like 200% of the possession and to make things worse for Chelsea, their captain John Terry had been sent off after a moronic knee to the back of Alexis Sanchez`thigh (Think Joey Barton or Mario Balotelli Stupid). Ramires managed to keep Chelsea hopes alive with a goal right before halftime but did nothing to brighten the mood. Down 2-1 on the road with 10 men having to defend an entire half against a team that seems to only have trouble scoring when they want to literally walk the ball into the net. Being somewhat of a Chelsea fan, the next 45 minutes were in no way fun. As attack after attack kept coming from the Barcelona players, I had no doubt in my mind if but only when the goal was coming. As time went on, the match became even worse to watch as the tension simply grew and grew. It was with about 10 minutes to go in the match that I started believing. Sure Chelsea was probably ruining the game of soccer with their tactics (Drogba was playing right back!!) but it didn’t matter, nothing did as long as they made it to the final. My guard never dropped though because after all this was Barcelona and Iniesta had only a few years back done this. And then in the 92nd it was all over, Fernando Torres had come in and clinched it, simultaneously vanquishing some of his demons (not all, one goal does not make up for his insane lack of scoring since he’s been acquired but still) booking Chelsea a place in the final and making Gary Neville emit a sound that has to be heard to be believed.
The second semi-final a day later somehow managed to match the drama of the first with Real Madrid and Bayern Munich ending their semi in the cruelest way possible out of any sport, the penalty shoot-out (I’m not quite sure how to fix it since making the teams play a replay would take out most if not all of the drama of the match while having continuous overtimes would only tire the players incredibly leading to sloppy play and a high risk of injury. There doesn’t seem to be an easy fix but there should be one because having a high-stakes game decided on what is essentially a lottery seems lazy and stupid). Watching both teams prepare for the shoot-out still had me favoring Madrid, I mean they have Casillas and countless stars on their team, surely they couldn’t lose. But as Sergio Ramos attempted to recreate the Patrick Ewing free throw scene in Space Jam (skying his penalty way over the bar) I began to realize how very wrong everyone had come to be. We weren’t getting El Clasico, we weren’t even getting something close.
Tomorrow the final of the Champions League will be played in the Allianz Arena in Munich with Bayern Munich taking on Chelsea FC. It will be the first time in the modern era of the Champions League where one of the finalists will have a chance to win the trophy on their home pitch. The game will have to be pretty spectacular to match the last soccer match most of us have seen (I’m of course talking about The Manchester Madness that happened this last weekend with Man City scoring two stoppage time goals against QPR to win the premier league title over city rival Manchester United. The shot of Sir Alex Ferguson looking in disbelief at the scoreboard after the game made me realize how much I love sports and I don’t even like Man City). However with it being a final of a major competition, don’t expect it to be pretty soccer. For every Liverpool-AC Milan classic, we get 10 boring defensive affairs that are forgotten as soon as they are over. In this match I expect it to be a less extreme version of the semi-final between Barcelona FC and Chelsea FC with Bayern Munich attacking and holding most of the possession while Chelsea happily sits back and waits for the one counter to turn the game around. A major point of this game will be Chelsea’s makeshift (that’s putting it kindly) back four. With the incredibly stupid (anytime you can have a rule where top players are held out of the premier match of the entire season, you gotta keep it!) rule that suspends players with cumulative yellow cards, the Blues will have to play the final without Ramires (has been huge this season), Branislav Ivanovic (ditto), Raul Meireles (hasn’t always started but his hair looks like this so it’s extremely sad he won’t be playing) and John Terry (whatever personal issues this man has, he has been the rock in Chelsea’s back four this year).
Chelsea also might not have the services of back-up defenseman David Luiz and Gary Cahill who are both recovering from hamstring injuries. Bayern are also victims of the yellow card accumulation with the loss of Holger Badstuber, David Alaba and Luiz Gustavo for tomorrow’s final. They really have to wipe out the yellow cards for the final which would allow both teams to field their top 11 and make the game better to watch for everybody. Why isn’t this happening already? There’s not a good argument opposing this. With so many key players missing for Chelsea I am going into tomorrow not expecting much but maybe that’s just how Chelsea wants it. They were never supposed to make it close with Barcelona let alone make it to the finals and yet here they are. I’m predicting that for Chelsea to win tomorrow afternoon they will need to hold off the early Bayern onslaught that is sure to come especially as they will be pushed forward by their home crowd. If they get past that then anything is possible and here’s to hoping that tomorrow we see a final that is remembered for years to come.
Reasons to watch: The Allianz Arena (it changes colours, it looks really cool and the fans are basically right on top of the players making it a great atmosphere), Franck Ribery (debating with your friends if he’s the ugliest superstar in sports), Arjen Robben (debating with your friends how old he is before shockingly discovering he’s way younger than you thought), realizing after 10 minutes of watching that Robben only has one move (the cut-back to his stronger foot), spending the next 80 minutes of watching in a frustrated, angry mood that none of the defenders can realize that Robben only has one move, the extremely biased pro-Chelsea commentary we are sure to get from Martin Tyler and Gary Neville (wouldn’t be surprised if the camera cut to them both wearing Frank Lampard jerseys), marvelling at Drogba’s skill and then being embarrassed at his diving all in the same 5 minutes, Mario Gomez looking exactly like Crispin Glover, seeing Raul Meireles’ hair on the bench, Fernando Torres coming on and scoring the game-winning goal (ok so that’s what I’m hoping is going to happen), Petr Cech’s helmet, Jose Bosingwa’s uni-brow, and last but not least it’s the Champions League Final. You shouldn’t need a reason to watch. Go Blues.
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