I've been looking at player ratings on the English newspaper websites. All the Chelsea players are rated very highly, 7s & 8s, with glowing comments. The Barca players are lowly rated for the match with Eto'o's 4 on Timesonline.co.uk/sport being the lowest. Here, Ashley Cole gets an 8 while Messi gets a 5. I suspect if Chelsea had qualified in a similar situation as last, they would still have been rated highly and Barca very low. It's just emotional.
All night, the ball was like Canaan to Cole, he could see it but couldn't touch it. Messi skipped past him at will, including one ridiculous body swerve in the second half when Messi didn't even touch the ball until Cole was chasing rabbits in the other direction. Even 3, 4 defenders could not take the ball off Messi, they merely forced him to pass and yet the raters think the massed defenders played him off the park? Nonsense. And we've not even mentioned his significant assist on the goal yet. It was the concentration of defenders on the man with the ball that created open spaces for barca elsewhere and allowed the goal. All night, Barca had opportunities for shots but opted to pass. I guess that's why Prof Mills used to say that questions that students answered last were the best; they did not have enough time so they went straight to the point. For me, Barca's game is always like an thorough investigation, they probe you down the left, then the right, and the middle, and eventually, a breakthrough.
Those Chelsea fans crying penalty seem to have forgotten getting away with Bosingwa's manhandling of Henry in the box in the first leg. Only Dani Alves' foul on Malouda in the first half was a clear penalty. The rest, I've seen them NOT given either because the defending player was turned away from the ball or the distance was too short for him to react. As Alex Ferguson says all the time, these things even themselves out over a season. Unfortunately for Chelsea, they evened themselves out over 2 legs.
When Reading was last in the EPL, Steve Coppel noted that the best way to play much better teams is to take the fight to them vigourously. Unfortunately, that's the also the way to get yourself a thrashing. If Chelsea wanted to win badly enough, they should have taken the risk and attacked instead of constantly keeping 9 men in their box. They have a right to do that but the ref also has a right to exercise his discretion as granted by the rules. Except for the foul on Malouda, I would have ignored all the other shouts too.
Chelsea, sorry oh!
