One Actor On The Biggest Stage

The season of bizarre scripts threw up another one to close out the season; no, not Sam Allardyce replacing Venky’s in the Premier League, but what seemed like the closing act of Didier Drogba’s Chelsea career, as the Blues became the first London club to win the European Cup.

While it would be hard for anyone in today’s game to paint Roman Abramovich’s 7 year cash assault on the Champions League as romantic, and while it was difficult to stomach John Terry gatecrashing the celebration in full kit, no-one could begrudge the Ivory Coast striker his moment of retribution on Saturday evening at the Allianz Arena. Drogba is not without his own critics but it was truly his show in the final; a night 4 years in the making. A favourite pantomime villain of choice at times in the Premier League, Drogba was labelled “an actor” by Bayern Munich coach Jupp Heynckes ahead of the showpiece final.

Maybe he is.

But then every actor needs a stage, and there was a growing sense of inevitability as the evening wore on. Munich peppered Chelsea’s goal with around 30 shots but it was protected by charm and Ashley Cole; even when Thomas Muller scored on 82 minutes, there was still a sense that more was to come, and that the German side would live to regret their profligacy. It was made all the more coincidental then that Munich were visited by the ghost of Christmas Manchester United with less than 3 minutes to go, Drogba thumping home a replica of Muller’s goal just 5 minutes earlier. The game ticked into injury time yet Chelsea’s name was on the trophy.

Didier Drogba’s involvement in the Champions League will forever be entwined with Chelsea; not just because he went on to score the penalty that won them the trophy, but for the obsession that overtook both player and club in his career at Stamford Bridge. His red card in Moscow was seen by many as letting the club down, particularly as he would have been one of the spot-kick takers that evening. Yet the controversy in the semi final in 2009 against Barcelona where he berated the referee into the camera lens, his involvement in this years semi-final where he both scored an important goal and then gave away a stupid penalty only to be given a reprieve, were all subplots in the story of one man and his destiny. When he made another bad tackle in his own area in the opening moments of extra time on Saturday, Arjen Robben’s unconvincing penalty was almost predictable, as if he had read the script. If Drogba’s conversion is his final act in a Chelsea shirt then what better way to bow out?

It was not solely Drogba’s evening of course. Many had written Chelsea off after the suspensions that handicapped them heading into the game, particularly the absences of Terry, Ivanovic and Ramires, but the resolve of Roberto Di Matteo’s charges to not only keep calm when under intense pressure but to hit back when there were only minutes left to regroup was nothing short of remarkable. No, it wasn’t up there with the masterclasses of Barcelona in finals of recent years, and it probably doesn’t quite match up to the comebacks from Manchester United and Liverpool in finals of this competition but it was a demonstration of character and mental strength up there with the best of them. Like Manchester City last week, and as written at the top of this article, it’s hard to find a fairytale in a pile of money but like Manchester City last week Chelsea had a moment that wasn’t given to them by money; it was a true moment of sporting magic, embodied by one man, and when the stars align in such a manner it is difficult to resent such an achievement. After around eighty minutes of anti-climax, the season ended in befitting fashion, a blistering and breathtaking culmination to one of the most remarkable campaigns in living memory for English football.

It’s a campaign that felt like it ended too soon, a campaign that has left people wanting more, not least because of the countless questions that people want answered. What of Chelsea’s future, now both Abramovich and Drogba appear to have completed the journeys both set out on? What of Tottenham, who were unpublicised victims of the result as now they will not qualify for the Champions League after all? What of the fates of Arsenal and Liverpool, who both had difficult seasons? And what lies ahead in Manchester, a city currently negotiating a power shift at the top of the table? It may be a long time until English football witnesses a season where the destinies of all major trophies were so marginal; but I, for one, can’t wait for August already.