Champions League Final 2008 LiveBlog: Chelsea vs Man Utd

By: Daryl | May 21st, 2008

   

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AFP PHOTO / ALEXANDER NEMENOV
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Chelsea 1-1 Man Utd

AET – Man Utd win 6-5 on penalties.
Lampard 45′ – Ronaldo 26′

Luzhniki Stadium, 21st May 2008
Kick off: 22:45 local time, 19:45 GMT

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Thanks to everyone for reading and commenting. Maybe not the best game ever, but plenty of drama at the end there.

So that’s it, Man Utd are European champions, Chelsea have to settle for second place. John Terry can consider himself very unlucky, can’t blame him for slipping. Drogba won’t be too popular in the Chelsea dressing room I imagine. He would have taken (and probably scored) a peno if he’d managed to stay on the pitch.

Grant consoling a distraught John Terry. Could easily have been C-Ron in tears after he missed.

Great save by Van der Sar on Anelka’s penalty.

Got to feel for John Terry right now.

Video of the shootout:

PK7: Anelka has to score… but VDS saves! Man Utd win the Champions League.

PK7: Giggs… puts it bottom right with his left foot. 6-5 to Utd.

PK6: Kalou has to score, and does. 5-5.

PK6: Anderson scores straight up the middle. 5-4

PK5: John Terry steps up. If he scores, Chelsea win. He slips and hits the post! Unbelievable. 4-4. Sudden death is coming. His left foot gave out as he struck it.

PK5: Nani has to score… Cech gets to it, but it still goes in. 4-4.

PK4: Cashley… scores, bottom right. VDS guessed right but Cole struck it hard. 4-3 to Chelsea.

PK4: Hargreaves… top left corner. Bang. 3-3.

PK3: Lampard… scores low to VDS’s left. Looks like VDS got fingertips, but 3-2 to Chelsea.

PK3: C-Ron (who missed in the semi) does the stutter step and CECH SAVES! 2-2 still

PK2: Belletti scores, bottom right corner. Rolled it in. 2-2.

PK2: Carrick scores, to the left. 2-1 to Utd

PK1: Ballack… scores. to the right. 1-1.

PK1: Tevez scores. Bottom right corner 1-0 to Utd

Looks like Man Utd to go first. Tevez has stepped up.

Weird new rule: Because Chelsea only have ten men, Man Utd can nominate a player to sit out of the shootout.

Video of Drogba’s slap on Vidic:

Extra time is over It’s going to be spot kicks.

120+ Anderson on for We Brown for the same reason.

120+ Belletti in for Makelele. I’m guessing that’s for the penalties, Belletti has a mean right foot.

120′ Nani and Cole both go for the ball but clash heads instead. Both are down, that looked pretty nasty.

119′ Chelsea need to kill the last minute (plus added time). If that’s Drogba’s last appearance for Chelsea… then what a rubbish way to go out.

Unbelievable. Only a little slap, but Drogba knows the rules. You can’t go round slapping people. Not unless you’re challenging them to a swordfight.

And Chelsea lose a key penalty taker.

Looks like Drogba slapped Vidic in the face. What a lame way to get sent off.

Yellow for Ballack, RED for Drogba, Yellow for Tevez.

Looks like Vidic is claiming he’s been hit in the face.

115′ Rumble! Players in a big crowd pushing and shoving.

114′ Cole trying to deal with cramp by sitting down and shaking his crotch about. Not sure if that helps.

113′ Man Utd really putting the pressure on, but Chelsea seem to have about 100 defenders in the box.

112′ Drogba’s free kick flashes wide. Ballack watches on, probably thinking how much better he would have done.

110′ Anelka ran at Vidic, who went in with a pretty clumsy slide tackle. Ref takes his name, and not in a friendly way.

108′ Not much in the way of quality action. It’s all very scrappy.

105′ Second half of extra time is underway.

Flag among Chelsea fans reads “Scouse Free Zone”

Halftime in extra time

105′ Carvalho gets his big forehead to a corner, but no power in it.

103′ Tevez shoots, Cech saves. It;’s looking scrappy now, lots of tired legs.

102′ Rooney off for Nani.

100′ Giggs nearly has the winner after Evra cut it back, Terry got his head in the way. That wold have been quite a way to cap his record breaking appearance.

99′ Joe Cole comes off, Nic Anelka comes on, and a certain Offside blogger whose name begins with L is made very happy.

98′ Kalou dribbles though and slips Essien the ball, great block by whichever Utd defender it was.

96′ Russian troops putting Man Utd jerseys on. Is that the new uniform? Big merchandise order for the Man U club shop.

95′ Joe Cole went down after a not particularly tough tackle from Evra. And he’s still down. Man Utd reluctantly kick the ball out.

94′ Short passing in the box, Lampard turns and strikes straight at the bar. Joe Cole tries a scissor kick on the rebound but skies it.

93′ Heavy rain in Moscow. How’s that look in HD?

92′ Salomon Kalou on for Florent Malouda.

90′ Extratime is underway.

Fulltime It’s all over. Man Utd and Chelsea will share the Champions League trophy. What? Oh, OK. Extra time coming up.

89′ Did everyone see the linesman’s flag go up when Ferdinand tackled Joe Cole? That could have been the game right there.

87′ It’s Scholes who makes way for Giggs. That’s it, the Welshman is now the Man Utd all time appearance record holder.

84′ We’re expecting Giggs on sometime soon. He’ll break Bobby Charlton’s Man Utd appearance record once he sets foot on the pitch. Who’s coming off though?

83′ Ballack shoots from outside the box. Very very very over.

82′ Tevez blasts one from distance, but just over and just wide. Good effort though.

80′ Vidic just gets in front of Drogba again, but Ferdinand is looking out of sorts.

78′ Drogba hits the post! From distance and with very little backlift, he bent one at the far post. But actually hit the far post. So very close though.

76′ Drogba nods it on to Malouda who trips going for it. No penalty, but Ferdinand may have caught him.

73′ Ronaldo does a spot of dribbling and wins a corner, even though no Chelsea player touched it.

71′ Looks like Tevez has taken some revenge on Makelele. The Frenchman is down after an elbowtastic tangle with the Argentinian.

70′ Ferdinand is back on, but looking a bit limpy.

69′ There’s no way that’s just cramp. The stretcher is out.

68′ Ferdinand blocks a through ball, but he’s pulled something.

67′ Time for some subs maybe? A lot of talent on both benches. And John O’Shea too.

66′ Lampard’s shot hits Vidic in the head.

64′ Vidic tussles with Drogba (again) and gives away a free kick. Vidic not happy with the decision, but he did sort of push DD to the floor.

Just kidding of course.

61′ Avram Grant wearing a big smile on the bench.

60′ Ashley Cole’s rubbish defensive header goes straight to Tevez, but Tevez can’t make anything of it.

58′ Makelele takes down Hargreaves, with another elbow to the nose. Makelele on a mission to break noses today.

57′ The red sea parts in front of Ballack and invited him to shoot at goal. He shoots at the stand instead.

56′ Decent cross from Malouda(?) but Vidic gets in front of Drogba with a diving header.

55′ Essien charges forward, turns Ronaldo on the edge of the box (taste of his own medicine) but then fires over the bar.

54′ Evra lifts it from the left, but far too high. He gets an earful from Wayne Rooney.

51′ Joe Cole tries to go around Evra but proves what we all know already: pace is not his biggest attribute.

50′ Shevchenko muttering something on the bench. Wonder if we’ll see him today? I can’t imagine Grant bringing Sheva on before Anelka.

47′ Drogba trips Scholes. Not a great day for the ginger midfielder so far.

45′ We’re underway.

Players coming out for the second half, Fergie arguing with the ref on the way out.

Video of Lampard’s equalizer:

Video of Ronaldo’s goal:

Halftime 1-1 and though Utd have probably been the better team, all the momentum is with Chelsea after that late equalizer.

45+1 Carvalho goes in late and hard on Ronaldo. Nasty. Apparently Carvalho isn’t interested in winning Euro 2008.

Ferdinand failed to clear and then the shot that came through (not sure who from) hit him and fell to Lampard. All square in Moscow.

45′ GOAL! Lampard. 1-1.

44′ Ballack gets some curl on the ball but fires it over. Drogba will be taking the next one.

43′ Lampard goes down in the box, but the foul from Ferdinand was outside. Free kick in a promising position.

42′ Roony puts a great low ball in and Tevez, Makelele and Cech all miss it. That could easily have been 2-0. Chelsea on the ropes.

40′ Ashley Cole goes down just outside the box but gets nothing.

36′ ESPN are pimping their Euro 2008 coverage so I’m going to do the same. Visit Euro 2008 for all the action this summer. We won’t have Tommy Smyth.

35′ Utd break from the corner and Cech to the rescue. He saves a diving header from Tevez and the rebound from Carrick. Great work from the Cheslea keeper.

33′ Drogba nods a ball back across goal and Ballack has a point blank header. Van der Sar pulls out a great one handed save at close range.

31′ Drogab gets the cold spray and then hugs himself. Cold spray must be really cold.

30′ Drogba is down, holding his back.

And who knew Wes Brown had a left foot?

So much for Ronaldo never scoring against Chelsea. Great time to start too.

Chelsea 0-1 Man Utd

26′ GOAL! Ronaldo heads home from a Wes Brown cross.

24′ About ten players jump simultaneously for the corner. Terry gets there first, but his header goes wide. Looks like quite a few players lost their footing too.

23′ Cole takes the ball from Tevez, Lampard play a dangerous diagonal ball in and Vidic heads over his own goal. Risky, but Drogba was behind him.

22′ Looks like Scholes isn’t cut, but has a nose bleed instead.

21′ Scholes gets a yellow card! For bleeding?

20′ Scholes and Makelele clash in the air, Scholes comes down with a cut to his face. Maybe from Makelele’s elbow?

17′ Now Evra gets a cross in from the left. Think Utd have found a point of attack.

16′ Spoke too soon. Ronaldo just roasted Essien down the wing and floated in a cross. Too high for Hargreaves, but that’s got to have Essien worries. C-Ron made it look easy.

15′ Fifteen minutes in and not a great deal has happened.

14′ Ashley Cole getting a bit of treatment.

10′ I just lost the regular feed on ESPN2. If that’s happened to anyone else then I recommend switching to ESPN’s HD channel, where even if you don’t have a HD tv, you at least have the game and not a blank screen. Is it just me that lost it?

8′ Ashley Cole flicks it up in the air for Florent Malouda to clear. Fancy, but it still finished with a long ball.

7′ Drogba vs Vidic continues with an aerial challenge. Looks like NV got a handful of DD’s face.

6′ Hargreaves cross goes straight to Cech. Looks like it took a deflection. Weird choice to play him out wide. No?

5′ Ronaldo trapped the ball but it was out of bounds. Does a very bad job of pretending nothing happened.

4′ Looks like Hargreaves might actually be playing right midfield. If that’s the case then Ashley Cole is the most relieved man in Moscow.

3′ Drogba and Vidic fighting over a high ball, another great match up.

2′ Essien takes down Ronaldo. If that’s the match-up it’s going to make great viewing.

1′ Chelsea’s new kit has an interesting design with player names in all-lower-case on the back. Not sure if that’s good or bad.

0′ Kick off. Here we go.

If you believe the UEFA teamsheet that has Owen Hargreaves playing right-mid, then you’ll believe anything. Michael Essien is playing right back though.

Ronaldo smiling. Seems he’s looking forward to this.

Release the balloons! Nice touch. Doesn’t make up for the dancing though.

Teams are coming out.

Five minutes until kick off:

Watching the opening ceremony. It’s a bit… silly. Lots of twirling about. A bit like C-Ron?

Strange statistic I just heard: Cristiano Ronaldo has apparently never scored against Chelsea.

10 minutes until kick off:
Rinat Dasayev brings out the Champions League trophy. I always forget how bloody huge that things is.

30 minutes to go:
Let’s get the cliches outta the way:

Two English teams, yadda yadda yadda
Will Ronaldo/Drogba show up for the big game?
The pitch is in horrible condition

45 minutes until kickoff:

Anyone brave enough to chance a prediction? I’m going 1-1, extra time and then penalties. At which point, it’s a lottery,

Starting lineups:

Manchester United: Van der Sar, Brown, Ferdinand, Vidic, Evra, Carrick, Hargreaves, Scholes, Ronaldo, Rooney, Tevez.
Subs: Kuszczak, Anderson, Giggs, Nani, O’Shea, Fletcher, Silvestre.

Chelsea: Cech, Essien, Terry, Carvalho, A Cole, Makelele, Ballack, Lampard, Malouda, J Cole, Drogba.
Subs: Cudicini, Shevchenko, Mikel, Kalou, Alex, Belletti, Anelka.

No huge surprises there. Got to feel for Park Ji Sung though. He didn’t even make the bench.

60 minutes until kick off:
Turns out the winners of today’s game can expect a financial windfall:

The winner of Wednesday’s Champions League final will earn more than 85 million pounds ($166 million) in sponsorship and TV deals, higher players’ values and growth in ticket sales, a study has shown.

The study also predicted that the city of Moscow would benefit to the tune of 35 million pounds in tourism and commercial spending for hosting the final.

In more game related news, Chelsea are expecting Ashley Cole to get over his ankle injury and be fit to play.

90 minutes until kick off:
This is it then, the big one in Moscow. I’ll be scratching around for Champions League Final related news (lineups, injuries, Ballack vs Drogba fistfights etc) between now and kickoff. But here’s a roundup of other Champions League final related content on The Offside:

Previews:

Champions League Offside: This is it
Man Utd Offside: Actions Speak Louder Than Words
Chelsea Offside: Video Preview with Jack

And if that doesn’t do it for you, we’ve got the alcohol-tastic Champions League Offside Drinking Game: Final Edition the rules of which are as follows:

You Must Take One Finger Of Drink When Any of the Following Occur:

Ronaldo does more than one stepover in a move
The words “All English” and “Final” are used in a sentence by the commentry team
Drogba, Ronaldo, Joe Cole or Nani go down a bit easy
Alex Ferguson is seen ranting at the Ref/Linesman/4th Official
John Terry or Nemanja Vidic get away with a sneaky little foul no-one ever seems to notice
The commentry team make a joke about Avram looking sullen on the Chelsea bench
The camera inevitable pans to Ole Gunnar Solskjaer who will be inevitably in the crowd
In fact anytime the 1999 Final is referenced in any way.
The poor-Russian pitch is mentioned by the commentary team. You must kill your drink if they refer to the Plastic pitch England played on in Russia, which if your watching on ITV is semi-inevitable.
A long ball is hoofed up field at no-one in particular.

Kill your drink when:

Someone scores
Half Time
Extra Time
There is a Penalty Kick (with the exception of shoot out, i can’t possibly condone that)
Ryan Giggs comes onto the field to beat Bobby Charlton’s record. (if he starts, you can make a judgement call)

In the Second Half

The teams MUST be referred to as The Red Devils and The Blues, otherwise its drink central.
Every Ten minutes of the second half, a member of the party may come up with a new rule based on how the game is going.
Everytime there is a second half substitute have a drink.

For less drinky pre-game entertainment you could try the Champions League Final Whack-a-Mole Game (do it in conjunction with the drinking game and watch your Whack-a-Mole scores deteriorate.)

And last, but by no means least, you can hope that Avram Grant takes Jack’s advice about celebration dance grooves:

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