Chelsea won and that's all that matters. They had some huge slices of luck along the way but their name was on it for whatever reason. In general, however, of course it's possible to win without deserving to. It happens in football all the time. Arsenal in the cup final against United, for example.
heh point taken about the sending off. we will never know if it actually crossed the line or not but youre right its irrelevant (funny how history only remembers certain details and forgets others! My bad). The broader point still stands that at some point or another, every team will have something that fans of other teams would call 'luck' on root to winning the champions league. My point was that it is unfair to say one team is lucky for winning the tournament - particularly a team who have had so much not go for them over the years. In addition, 2 of those 3 games that they took a lot of punishment in were against barcelona. point in the direction of a team other than madrid who have got close to them in big games over the last few years...
Hey you dip stick, you're coming a bad second on this discussion, . I'd quit while your still behind.
Bitterness is such a stupid, non-descript evaluation by a smug and self-interested "elite", and Chelsea for are currently the elite, so "bitterness" is bandied about like crazy. They have every right to be a just a little bit smug however, and good luck to 'em. "Deserved" is another frequently overused and subjective pile of horse-****. What does it even mean? To a Chelsea fan it means they stuck to defence, scored a goal with precious few minutes left, then defended doggedly til penalties, at which point they scored more and thus "deserved" to win. You have to accept that as a neutral, however, the term is more likely to revolve around attacking intent and spectacle than so called successful "anti-football". I mean, so obviously not believing in your team enough to go toe to toe with Bayern does reek a bit of "penalties is our only hope". Certainly I was hoping Bayern would get an early goal and force Chelsea to play something resembling an attacking formation, but I was happy enough that Drogba got Motm (still not entirely sure why) because it got me £20 off a £1 bet! I don't understand why this debate is necessary though, Chelsea won end of. And congratulating a fan-base is ultimately idiotic too in my opinion. Well done on picking to support a team who won the champions league this year... As I said in another post, credit and congratulations go to the players, the happiness of association "deservedly" go to the fans. Have a good time with it I say! The problem for your team is this seems like the end of the road, not the beginning, so will a slump ensue? Next season will be interesting!
True but many a year we have lost in the C.L and not deserved it. This year all that bad luck, bad decisions, missed pens came back around and we finally did it. It feels amazing.
We were missing 2 top defenders and arguably our best midfield player. Don't think we had much choice to be honest!
I think Di Matteo did the right thing but to play devil's advocate he could have gone for it a bit more at 0-0. If Drogba doesn't pull a rabbit out of the hat from the only corner then it probably goes down as the most one-sided final in history.
Truth be told, you were implementing those tactics in the competition long before the suspensions, so it was a conscious choice. Even with those players out, to me you have options in attack. You had a striker you bought for £50million on the bench for example. If you took out three of the "best players" (and that suggests Terry, Ivanovic and Ramires are your best... Which is far from the case in all but the latter's case to me) from Bayern, they would still attack because they have an inbuilt mentality that is in opposition to the Chelsea one. Di Matteo is being lorded as "tactical god", but he didn't invent the wheel, he merely re-invented it. Countless good managers have come to Chelsea to try fast attacking football, and failed miserably, purely because the squad hasn't been conducive to it. What he did well was effectively to revert back to the Mourinho manual that presumably has been left gathering dust somewhere at Stamford Bridge. In that sense, I think Chelsea's final tactics were set, but there were still options, and as an aforementioned neutral, I would have preferred attacking styles, but there you go... It's over now! So is Robbie the man to take you forward? I would say no, unless your re-building effort is to aim for the exact same tactics as Mourinho's squad was built for. If that's what Roman wants (and I doubt it), then he will get the job.
Implemented those tactics against Barca granted but so do 99% of clubs who play them. Bayern were a far different proposition to Barca! Di Matteo played decent attacking football at WBA and has done at Chelsea too. He has also shown he can adapt to different situations! He deserves his chance.
Well done Chelsea, fantastic squad effort. Why some fans can't seem to understand that defending well is part of the game I'm not sure. There are many different ways to win a football match, they're all valid. I don't like watching hoofball but Chelsea have hardly done that! They've played intelligent counter attacking football. The big players rocked up on the big stage. The bitterness from Spurs fans etc is not exactly surprising to be fair to them. Nobody would like to be in that situation. Their board is a good read though if you're feeling slightly down at present. Some bizarre and bitter comments.
Ta Warm Pouch ...........Are they still all uppity and bitter? http://www.dpchallenge.com/image.php?IMAGE_ID=818683
They're talking about telling UEFA to stick the Europa on one thread like its a serious option. Of course UEFA would just accept it and it wouldn't have any future consequences. I think their board will have a little more sense. What a ****ter for their fans though. Despite the upgrade in money for league placing, I prefer our scenario where we don't have to think what might have been. The other night was a great spectacle for football. Game was on a knife edge throughout and as a neutral you couldn't have asked for more drama. Cole was immense bar the goal. Lampard, the two centre backs, Cech, Drogba all gave it everything. If you can't watch a game like that and not get drawn in, there's something wrong with you.
It is probably the most undeserved and dire performance in a Champions league final by a team, made no attempts to win the game and played like Greece 2004/ Stoke. An ugly spectacle of a game ruined by a team playing for a draw./ penalties. But the win is all that matters, so being undeserved doesn't matter.
Makes me laugh all this 'undeserved' rubbish. Bayern were the ones who were dire, nobody who fluffs their lines that many times deserves victory. Chelsea were clinical. Bayern bottled the shootout, Chelsea didn't. That's all it comes down to. It's just because people, on the whole, despise Chelsea because the way the club is run represents everything folk hate about the modern game. **** Roman Abramovich and **** John Terry, however I am genuinely made up for the fans who were there before the money, congratulations to them
So a team that doesn't even make attempts to win the game, deserves to win? Completely dominated by Bayern and only won by the luck of the penalty shoot out. Which only seems to be called luck, when an English team loses...when an English team wins by it, it's 'fully deserved'. Anti-football. Of course congratulations to them, ruined a CL final but won.
