2008 European Champions League Final - A Game for the Ages!
A Game for the Ages!
I figured it was about time that I write about the UEFA Champions League Final. Manchester United vs Chelsea. An all English Final. The Drama. The Pageantry. The Game.
1-1 after 90 minutes. 1-1 after 120 minutes. 6-5 on penalty kicks to Manchester United!
I start by thanking all the players and both managers, for putting on a game worthy of being talking about for generations. United and Chelsea played their guts out, either team could have come away with a victory and it would have been well deserved.
The rain poured down on the players all night, and the field was soggy. For those who watched and saw the stats when Joe Cole came off the field that he had traveled over 13000 meters. Think about this: on a soggy field like the one in Russia on Wednesday, running feels like you are running on sand. The extra effort to move is great, to move with such a speed a precision is near impossible. So 13000 meters, or over 8 miles in just less than 100 minutes (Cole was subbed off in the 99th minute) on such soft ground. For those that have never run on a sandy beach or on a soggy soccer field, I can say with sincerity that it is brutal.
Cristiano Ronaldo put United ahead in the 26th minute with a beautiful header past the out reached hands of Chelsea goalkeeper Petr Cech. Credit to Wes Brown for delivering a pin point cross to Ronaldo, who did very well to get separation from the defense to get a quality header on goal. Chelsea would equalize in the 45th minute from brilliant build up play followed up by Frank Lampard who calmly slotted it home.
The game would be furious in the second half with Didier Drogba hitting the post with a rifle of a shot from some 20+ yards. Frank Lampard would also be centimeters close to getting a second goal with a shot off the crossbar. Substitute Ryan Giggs nearly sealed the win for United when he hit a shot towards a wide open Chelsea net; only a miraculous stretch of his neck was John Terry - running past the ball - able to bend back just enough to glance the ball off his head and over the goal.
Catastrophe struck for Chelsea in the 116th minute when Drogba, in a complete loss of mental focus, slapped United’s Nemanja Vidic in the face during a scuffle after a hard challenge. The slap was right in front of the referee and the dreaded Red Card was shown, leaving Chelsea to finish the last 4 minutes of overtime with 10 men, and without their best goalscorer for the impending penalty kicks.
Before everyone loses their heads about Drogba’s sending off, let me say this, I do not fully fault Didier Drogba for this. Should he have done it? Absolutely not. Did he deserve the red card? Absolutely. But Drogba was provoked into an attack, this is professional soccer and players will do whatever it takes to get any kind of edge (case in point the infamous Zinedine Zidane headbut in the final of the 2006 World Cup). This incident occurred very late into over time, and I have already stated how difficult it must have been to find energy after running on that soggy field. I can only imagine that Drogba was so fatigued, so tired both physically and mentally, that he let the moment get the best of him. In the end; however, Drogba is a professional and should have been able to control himself despite whatever situation he was in. He committed a monumental error, and hurt his team for it.
In to PK’s we go. Chelsea and United traded goals until up stepped Cristiano Ronaldo. Now, I will be the first to argue that Ronaldo is the best player in the world, and for 120 minutes of soccer, he showed that by being an absolute menace to the Chelsea midfield and defense, especially the world class Michael Essien. But he is arrogance and need for showmanship hurts him. He started about 10 feet behind the ball, ran up to strike it, stopped for a good 2 seconds about 4 feet behind the ball, then struck it - and deservedly, Petr Cech made the save. Why couldn’t he just go to the ball and hit it with the confidence everyone knows he has? Because Cristiano Ronaldo likes the attention and he wants everyone to know that he always has tricks up his sleeve. Well, it cost him. Even if he scored, it would have cost him as stopping the motion to strike a PK is illegal and surely he would have been forced to retake the kick. Regardless of Ronaldo’s antics, it came down to John Terry, if he scores Chelsea wins. Well the field had different ideas for the man who had saved Chelsea time and again during the course of 120 minutes. As Terry planted his foot, the turf slipped out from under him right as he struck the ball. He had United keeper Edwin Van der sar beaten, but not the post. My heart goes out to John Terry on this one. His of the highest class as a player, and from what I hear about him as a person, he is of the highest class in that regard as well.
Fate was not with Chelsea as two kickers later, Nicolas Anelka’s shot was saved by Van der sar and United found themselves victorious.
This was a game for the ages. A Champions League Final worthy of remembrance, and congratulations to the deserving champions Manchester United!!!
Who saw the game? I definitely want your thoughts!
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