I saw the UEFAChampions League final last night, and the entire game could could have probably been summed up by the weather, started of bright enough but ended up becoming a damp squib,atleast in the footballing sense. But even though the match didn't make for the most classic of football matches it sure made for one hell of a TV Drama.
First of all to begin with, Roman Abramovich couldn't have asked for a venue to see his greatest dream come to fruition, to see his team win the greatest prize in European Football on his home turf must have been the ultimate dream. Then as the game began Cristiano Ronaldo was determined to prove his worth and boy did he do just that. Then came Frank Lampard's turn to add the masala to this game, a man who scored of the spot, days after his mother's death to get Chelsea here, got them the precious equalizer. From this point on it was more about dramatic little moments than the continous flowing good football. Chelsea who probably were lucky to go into half time level were probably unlucky to have not won the match outright. So onto extra time and the football got no better but the drama got more intense. John Terry, who only 2 weeks back was stretchered of the field with a broken arm, made one of the great saves of the day to keep Chelsea in the game. And then it really got fun..Didier Drogba goes and pulls of a combo of Zidane and Harbajan Singh..imagine this could very well be the last act Drogba pulls for Chelsea ( considering that he could have atleast smacked Ronaldo, he has one coming). So on to the finale and the man who put the ball in the back of the net 42 times from often incredible positions couldnt put it in from 6 yards out. You would think that was drama enough, but then John Terry goes from hero to villain in 30 minutes (kinda like those soaps) and his slip up (literally) cost Chelsea the champions league. And for the last act of this gripping drama it came down to two men, Ryan Giggs,who has played at the same Club for 16 years and Nicolas Anelka who has hardly spent more than a year at the same club. And ina fitting finale, it was the veteran who became Man Utd's highest capped player ever in this match, who scored what would be the winning penalty, and Roman Abramovich watched 13 million pounds go down the drain as Anelka condemned his team to fate aptly described by his nickname, The Sulk.
On the whole given that Man Utd had a tougher group and knockout fixtures, I hate to admit it, but they did deserve the trophy.
On a different note as an incredible season of European football come to an end, I cant help but say that this has been possibly the best season of football I have witnessed. For the first time 4 leagues in Europe (England, Italy, France and Scotland) all were decided in the last game of the season, and we had one of the best Champions league competitions in quite a while, an utter unknown Zenit St. Petersburg, picked up the UEFA cup, thrashing the mighty Bayern Munich along the way. Add to that Milan didn't make it to next years Champions League, Valencia had to stave of relegation and of course who could forget England being knocked out of the Euro qualifiers. But my favorite tournament of the year had to be the FA cup, the oldest tournament in the world provided the most drama of any competition across Europe, consider the likes of Havnt and Waterlooville a team which doesn't even play in a professional league, taking on Liverpool at Anfield and taking the lead not once but twice, Barnsley knocking out Liverpool and Chelsea, and Portsmouth who knocked out Man Utd, going on to become the first team out of the Big 4 to win the competition in 13 years.
What a season of football, with the European Championships just around the corner, it's still not over, and in the spirit of football, I will be rooting for Switzerland or Croatia to pull of a big upset and lift the championship.
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