You are the captain of your side. You side is trying to win one of the most coveted competitions which you have never won. You are playing against one of the best sides in the history at their home ground. You have a 1-0 lead from the first leg and you just need to be sensible and determined to protect it. In this situation the chances of you kneeing your opponent at his back when the linesman is looking straight at you to hold the offside line is pretty much nonexistent, isn't it? But if your name happens to be John Terry none of the above things apply to you. But sensible is not one of the words you usually associate with John, do you? Branding what he did as stupidity will be risky because that leaves us to find new definitions for Mario Baloteli's everyday life! In fact it is good to do a research to find out whether these 2 people are related in anyway and considering John Terry's free time 'activities' it is safe to bet on a successful research.
If anything beat his on-field stupidity, it was the interview he gave after the match. A man who was stripped of the national captaincy twice, being investigated by police for racial insults and slept with his teammate's wife said that he is "not that type of a person". Really John? I seriously believe that he thinks we all have the same intellectual capacity as Wayne Bridge. The only silver lining is that Roberto De Matteo doesn't seem to be as dumb as Kenny Dalglish to lead his team out with all of them wearing 'For JT' T-shirts before the Champions League final in Munich.
Anyways, coming back to the match Chelsea got their tactics absolutely spot on and by tactics I mean parking the bus in front of goal. When you see Didier Drogba as a left back, you don't have to be a rocket scientist to know what they are going to do (To be fair to Chelsea, this happened after John Terry had that brain freeze). They came with a Double Decker bus but what stood out was Barcelona's inability to break it or fall back on Plan B. Watching the second half, it seemed like an unwritten rule in Camp Nou that everything should go through Messi and a goal scored without his touch is an inferior goal. They have to understand that a ball which is fired like hell from the right wing by Danny Alves, bounces of the shoulder of Ivanovic and falls inside to inches of goal line is still a goal. There was absolutely no wing play yesterday. Didier Drogba may still be a beast of a left back but essentially he was playing out of position. There was no initiative from Barcelona to exploit it and time and again they played it through the middle trying to find an opening. As seconds ticked by Chelsea grew familiar with it so much so that their goal machine (yes you are right, I am kidding here) more-than-50-million-worth Fernando Torres found time and space to counter attack and kill the tie. But, that goal aside, if what Torres was doing on the pitch was worth 50 million, I am worth 10000 times of that to my company. At the end, their brave resistance paid of even with a brainless captain.
When AVB, took over Chelsea at the start of the season, gloating about his 3 year 'project' there was a growing feeling that it was time for the old guard at Chelsea to hang up their boots. But, if anything, what Roberto De Matteo has shown is a willingness to include them in the scheme of things, however short term it is. You don't just throw away that experience to the sidelines over a fortnight. It may still be the last season for the likes of Terry (I hope not, who else will inspire us to produce so many adult jokes on my twitter TL?), Lampard and Drogba and this remains their last short at the European glory. Bayern or Madrid, the final is going to be battle of epic proportions. Bayern will obviously want to win it in front of their home crowd and if it is Madird, Jose Mourinho needs no second initiation to remind Abrahamovic once again that it was wrong to sack him 4 years ago. When Manchester Untied crashed out of Europe in the first round itself, I never thought I would have so much fun this season. Well, John Terry definitely had a different idea!
Good blog - but such a temptation to ruin a good case by overstating it! Terry made a mistake - a pretty stupid one - but he doesn't have that bad a record on getting sent off in big games. He did not (allegedly) sleep with Wayne Bridge's 'wife' - it was his EX girlfriend. That doesn't make it a good thing to do given that he's married himself - but equally not quite what you state here. His comment after the game was that he is "not that kind of player" rather than "not that kind of person" - i.e. not that he is beacon of morality generally but that he's not a dirty player. I think his record for club and country over the last 12 years generally supports that view. Yes, I am a Chelsea fan but I do not condone all Terry's behaviour and feel let down by him sometimes but he has been the point of continuity through the merry-go-round of Chelsea managers. On the pitch he is (usually) a fantastic leader. Wayne Rooney is not exactly a whiter than white character either but I suspect you cut him more slack!
ReplyDeleteThe rest of your blog I pretty much agree with. I think Mourinho invented the 'parking the bus' cliche after a 0-0 home draw with Spurs but it's got over used. I think most teams playing at the Camp Nou find they have some defending to do. If Barca have the ball, which they have on average 72% of the time against all teams at home, then what option do you have? You can't attack without the ball. Chelsea defended pretty well over the two legs to restrict the best attacking team in the world to only two goals. The really clever bit was to hit them three times on lightening quick breaks. Without that, a whole fleet of 'buses' would have been pointless. I agree that Barca lacked a plan B. Having said that, plan A produced enough chances but they didn't take them. Hitting the post or bar is not 'unlucky' - it's just a refined form of missing the target.
You are right about senior players and SAF has done a great job in continuing to extract value out of Giggs and Scholes. The next Chelsea manager needs to be as astute. The trouble is that Chelsea seem to have a new manager every few months. Who knows what might have been achieved if Abramovich had not sacked Mourinho? MUFC would have had more competition I think!
The CL final will be epic. I have a feeling Bayern will get through tonight but who knows?
Heyy Chris, appreciate such a detailed feedback. I agree with most of the things you mentioned, especially about JT. In fact I am one of the few who believes that players should be evaluated on based on what they do on the field, not off it. In a world where bank employees or teachers or Lawyers or politicians are not role models, I dont think that a footballer should lead the way for the next generation.. Few of the things written about JT was in a very light hearted mood, but there was no doubt that what he did yesterday was utterly stupid, considering that Cahill was substituted earlier. He did exactly the same thing in the first leg to the same player, but it went unpunished. No excuses this time though.
ReplyDeleteAm surprised that you are already talking about next Chelsea manager. I guess, based on what RDM has done, he should be give one more year whether he win CL or not.
I too have vague feeling that it is going to be Bayern's night today especially coz they carry a lead from the first leg.. One more goal at Bernabeau and it becomes an almost impossible mountain for Madrid. Anyways I will be not be watching today's match..Being in India means, the matches are happening at 12.30 midnight. Losing sleep for continuous 2 days and then pretending to be awake and working at office the next day in front of Boss is kind of tough, you see :P
Thanks - when talking about the 'next' Chelsea manager I'm not excluding RDM - he is not currently the Chelsea manager - he is 'interim first team coach' or something. Personally I hope he gets the job because bringing in the big names has not worked, except for Hiddink who was only a caretaker. RDM has Chelsea pedigree and he seems to be respected by the senior players. But, if Chelsea win the CL (or finish fourth) I wonder if Mourinho will be tempted? Stranger things have happened!
DeleteHmmmm.. That is a long shot, but I don't think it is possible. Between Roman and Mourinho, I dont know who is going to compromise on the ego and ready to work with each other again. It is possible but not probable. Anyways this transfer window promised to be real fun!
ReplyDelete