Carling Cup Craziness

Even without a brawl, a frightening injury and 11 minutes of stoppage time, the Carling Cup final between Chelsea and Arsenal was outstanding. Arsenal’s young guns and Chelsea’s global stars put on a display of football that made it sometimes hard to breathe even for a neutral spectator. When you throw in the mayhem, intensity and drama, it was a match for the proverbial ages.

The Chelsea Offside has the match covered from the Chelsea perspective. The Arsenal Offside has the video goodness of the brawl.

Below is the gruesome video of John Terry taking a boot to the face from Abou Diaby, which led to the scary scene of Terry lying on the ground unconscious and swallowing his tongue. There are a couple remarkable things about this. First, Terry has had a string of injuries all year, each seemingly worse than the next. Yet, each time he somehow is able to come back from them in no time at all. He even joined the Chelsea party a couple hours after having his head smashed in and proclaimed he was ok. I wouldn’t be surprised to see the guy lose a limb one of these days only to have it taped back on and for him to return in the same match. He is that tough.

The other amazing thing is what happened to Diaby. He was tears as he watched Terry being taken off on a stretcher. Those tears might have been from the horror of seeing a player you just kicked in the face look like he was dead or they might have been from the own pain he was suffering. He had to be substituted from the match because John Terry’s head hurt his ankle. That must be one hard headed bastard.

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Category: English Premier League