After two great semifinals we are left with Chelsea and Manchester United in the Champions League final which will take place May 21st in Moscow. They beat Liverpool and Barcelona respectively. This will be the first time there has ever been an all English final and I am sure that more than a few pints were drunken in the past few nights in the UK.
Tuesday showed us that Barcelona lacks the firepower they need to score because they controlled time of possession just like in the first leg but just couldn’t seal the deal with a goal. Without their tablesetter, Ronaldhino, who is out with injury-they struggled to attack the Manchester United goal. Lionel Messi is a great player but not quite the creative genius that Ronaldhino is.
Aging Portuguese International Deco missed the two best opportunities for the Catalans and Paul Scholes didn’t miss on Manchester United’s only good opportunity after a careless turnover in the box led to the only goal of the matches. United keeper Van Der Sar played well and Manchester United deserved to move forward as annoying as that might be to me.
To make it even worse, the own goal by Liverpool’s Riise in the first leg would loom very large as Chelsea defeated Liverpool 3-2 in extra time to advance to their first ever European Cup final. Didier Drogba, who may have the worst haircut in the history of the universe scored a dramatic double with two awesome goals and Frank Lampard added a clutch penalty shot to clinch the victory for Chelsea at wet Stamford Bridge. Liverpool played valiantly but didn’t have enough to beat Chelsea at home who are nearly unbeatable in London.
The final between my two most hated teams will be difficult for me to root in but I will have to go with Chelsea. It is similar to if the Mets and Red Sox played each other in the World Series, it would kill me but I would have to cheer for the Red Sox because I simply hate them slightly less than the Mets. I really hate Manchester United and evrything they stand for. I hate their star player and their manager. At least Chelsea has an entertaining owner in Russian billionaire, Roman Abromovich, who just went through the most expensive divorce in the history of the world-seriously.
So the Blues and the Red Devils will meet to decide who the champion of Europe will be in three weeks and in between they are tied at the top of the Premiership with two games to go and Man United holding a goal differential advantage so if they win out-they win. I hope also that Chelsea will win the Premiership because Arsenal and Liverpool are locked into third and fourth which also qualify for next years Champions league. Should be dramatic. Hopefully the English fans don’t kill or embarrass themselves or burn down the Kremlin-but that would be asking a lot of English football fans.
moscow will never be the same
It’s a sad day for football when two English teams are in the European final. I hear the Russians have guaranteed visas to supporters heading out for the match. They’ll live to regret that decision.