One of Stamford Bridge’s greatest nights – a Champions League classic
I found myself in one of those rare positions these days where I cheered hard and loud for Chelsea Football Club. There is only two situations wherein I will somehow end up cheering for a rival English Club.
Situation 1: It is a European competition, and United is not participating.
Situation 2: When during our regular league or a tournament, Chelsea winning their fixture leads United to having a more favorable result.
Today was situation 1.
Despite the decade of domination that we have had on the Champions League, this season has been the anomaly for the EPL. Like two power-drunk, complacent idiots, the two Manchester clubs embarrassed the league with their group stage exit. United is the biggest embarrassment because we had the easier group compared to City. But sometimes, that’s the harsh price to pay for complacency and a high concentration of young players on the pitch.
So I cheered hard for Arsenal last week. Praise their brave souls for crushing the Italian Champions and losing by a solitary home goal. Anyone who watched both games saw that over 180 minutes, Arsenal was the better team. It wasn’t that RVP should have shot that lost attempt instead of chipping it, but rather that Arsenal’s defense should have stopped slipping comically at San Siro.
And today Chelsea. I was particularly more motivated to cheer for Chelsea, more so than Arsenal because of Napoli’s stature. Admittedly, its a point of pride. Since last year, I’ve maintained that the EPL deserves a fifth Champions League slot. Four automatic qualifiers and one playoff spot. Its simple. We have top, Europe-grade teams like United, City, Arsenal, Liverpool, Chelsea and Tottenham. Our youngest and least experienced Champions League grade team knocked out the former European champions. To have these 6 quality teams battle it out for 3 automatic qualifiers and 1 playoff spot? Call it bias, call it whatever, but for me personally, these 6 teams are too big in talent and stature to be cut down to 4 teams. Fortunately for me, UEFA recognizes the EPL’s superiority through their coefficient placing, and that gap continues to widen between us and La Liga. So I have reason to believe that this fifth playoff spot will be ours soon enough. In any case, the tangent stems from my point that I cheered particularly hard for Chelsea because they played Napoli. To have Serie A’s third placed team from last season beat Chelsea would have gone against my campaign in a big way. Thankfully, Chelsea put in their proven old guard, and the fixture went as it should have in the first leg. Despite Chelsea, playing in the shambles that they are in, against a high flying, injury less Napoli, the fixture proved that Serie A’s third best had no business progressing beyond this round.
Looking to their future, Chelsea continues to be a difficult problem to solve. They can’t play consistently well without their old guard. But with them, there is no progress. On one hand, its a tremendous credit to Chelsea’s old guard. On the other hand, it was again cause for worry for a time when they will no longer be with the team. Didier Drogba was unbelievably infuriating in his bullshit antics tonight. The diving, the whining, the play-acting, the fully Drogba bag of tricks. But he was also the magnificent target man that he can be and without a doubt the best I have seen him this season. Terry, despite literally just coming back from injury, basically told skinny Cavani to scamper off home. Lavezzi who tormented Ivanovic in the first leg, couldn’t get half a yard on Ashley Cole. Lampard played relatively poorly against Napoli’s midfield, but he still managed to deliver one and hit the equalizing penalty. As tonight would once again, they are all fantastic players. If they weren’t they wouldn’t have won titles over United. It’s really that simple. So who can solve the Chelsea problem? Who is the man can oversee the shift of generations?
EDIT: I nearly forgot, in over time, Di Matteo wonders how to reshuffle the defense. John Terry explains something to him, proceeds to step ahead of him in the technical area, and yells at the players himself on how to move around, while a confused Di Matteo watches on with his arms folded. Sign of things to come? Is Di Matteo the real authority in Chelsea’s dressing room? How long until we see John Terry wearing the overcoat and scarf?
Shout out to Merseyside for a highly entertaining derby! Reason no. 940194921 why the EPL rules. Go to another country and find a regular league fixture between the 7th and 9th place team with a better crowd, atmosphere, footballing quality, hype, and tv coverage. Oh, and Good luck.
Everton started brightly enough, but I think it was a case of mismatched talent. People argue that had Leon Osman, Drenthe, and Jelavic been on the pitch, it would have been a much different story. Maybe, maybe not. I don’t think Osman as a big upgrade over Rodwell, Drenthe gave away the ball that led to Liverpool’s third goal, and Jelavic has a long way yet to go to prove that he deserves a spot over Victor Anichebe. A single, early career goal doesn’t justify a starting spot. Ji Dong Won scored a skillful winner against City, and last I spotted him, he was concentrating so deeply at toasting the bench at Sunderland. I think Everton played a strong squad given the inclusions of Hibbert and Jags, two experienced veterans that I rate. Further, they clearly showed an intent to attack, given that their usual one top switched to a two. I think the above two reasons alone prove the Moyes wanted something out of this game. The very fact that people are saying that he didn’t just proves ignorance of the lay fan. Moyes has never been a cup whore, never will be one, and has been very single-minded at improving Everton’s league position for the last ten years. And I have ten years of viewership to prove that.
Unfortunately, Skrtel was doing as well has he has all season, and Carragher was shockingly back to his old ability. Everyone will ooze and gush over the hat-trick hero, but I think there were other people on the pitch that deserve an Ostradamus-style shout out. Sure, Gerrard was fantastic in his finishing, but as he has admitted, both of his second and third goals were created by Suarez. Suarez deserves at least equal praise for his trickery and hard work to lay the ball of for Gerrard…twice I might add, and a third was possible had Andy Carroll had shot with his dominant right. Of all the games that Suarez has played, this may be the one where he showcased his best qualities, and avoided his worst. There were STILL two incidents, the more notable one being the utterly infuriating, expletive worthy dive for the free kick around at the 78th, but lets face it – just the two isn’t bad considering the man in question. So a huge amount of credit to him for not only playing for the team, but cutting down the usual antics noticeably as well. His doing that was a large part of the reason why the derby stayed an open, entertaining game, rather than a choppy mess filled with incidents that fans would have to argue about for days. Even from a selfish perspective, he did himself a giant favor. He played relatively cleanly, and he got much praise from fans around the league for that performance. Everyone noticed. United messageboards, Arsenal’s messageboards, Chelsea’s, Newcastle’s…who else did I read that day. The game proved that he doesn’t need to be a garbage human being in order to play really well. So why be a garbage human being?? Anyhow, had he played not-so-clean, his 2 assists would have been overshadowed by the media’s penchant to publicize the ugly side of footballers than the good ones. If anything, this game should prove to him that may be its worth it to cut the ugly side of his game down, and just focus on doing what he’s good at. Perhaps there may be one day when Luis Suarez becomes a player that is wholly a hard working, tricky forward, rather than 1/4 good forward, and 3/4 garbage human scum. That’s the day I look forward to, and the day premiership defenders fear.
The other player that deserves praise is the other forward. Andy Carroll. Or as I repeat the nickname that one Gazetto (italian print) announcer gave him, Andee Carollo. Yeah, so he didn’t score. And yes, he should have finished Suarez’ layoff in the early second half. But apart from that, he showed composure, technique, and shockingly, passing ability. I didn’t think Andy Carroll could play a deeper role than Suarez. Maybe its time for Dalglish to reconsider their configurations? Maybe its time for the trickier Suarez to full time advanced forward, and Andy Carroll to play a deep, target man role. Certainly unconventional to have a deep target man role, at least not since Shearer, but Liverpool needs a unique system considering their collection of players.
The third and final praise that I will dish out to Liverpool tonight goes to Liverpool’s fullbacks. Both were dominating their side of the defensive end, and both got forward well. What more credit is there to give to fullbacks? They did their job, and they excelled at their extracurricular activities. Glen Johnson would do well do improve his defensive game considering Martin Kelly’s shackling of Steven Pienaar.
That’s enough Scum praise for the day. But having rivals are only heated and exciting if they remain rivals. It’s not in my interest for our greatest rival of the past 20 years to fall below 7th. And it certainly doesn’t help my pro-EPL Champions League argument either.
I will leave this post with a couple twitter posts I found that made me warm and fuzzy inside. I’m so happy to know that I’m definitely not alone in supporting our last remaining beacon of hope, Chelsea Football Club, in Champions League this season. I’m so happy to see that others are willing to cheer on Chelsea for the good of our league, the finest in the world. Without further ado, these are the comments, with my comments italicized!
Joseph Barton Fancied Chelsea tonight, had a massive task and pulled it off. Fair play RDM. Napoli did themselves proud mind.
Joey Barton, apparently bet on Chelsea for the game and won a bunch of dough.
Great result for Chelsea, flying the English flag high in this years champions league! Shame we couldn’t join them, was so close!
Credit to someone who can enthusiastically cheer on rival team players after his own exit. Class.
Piers Morgan Actually want #Chelsea to win. Quite extraordinary, disturbing emotion.
Described my mood exactly.
Benik Afobe How I’d love a Fernando Torres winner in extra time! Can El Nino step up to the plate and produce?! #StageIsSet
Young forward who watched Torres during his formative footballing years. Respect of other players, whether it be player or supporter, transcends the boundaries of clubs.
Jack Wilshere Just jumped up when Lamps scored! I want chelsea through….English and proud! Come on you blues!
Chelsea’s most ardent twitter fan. I jumped too Jack. We both did the very thing that the Fatty’s weight doesn’t allow him to do.
Wayne Rooney Hope torres scores winner here. Great game.
A long-standing, great rival forward. For a man he has competed against, argued against, nearly fought against, for the better half of a decade, for both club and country, Wayne shows his support in the Spaniard’s time of need. Class.
The Beautiful Game 