well done chelsea

i've never clasped my hands together for 45 minutes willing a team on like that!

didn't like the blatant cheating on both side though. shame UEFA will do fuck all about it

I have no love for Chelsea but my God - what a game and well done Chelsea you held that line remarkably well - remained disciplined despite your Captain's stupid foul and sending off. I clasped my hands together too Dawg - it was riveting stuff. Fairy tale ending for Torres - but Drogba too was magnifico as was Cole and Ramirez - and the defending was text book Prem stuff - without Cahill and Terry. Bloody well done - proud of you - beating the 12 man dream team.

Yeah well done Chelsea, really was an heroic effort.

I bet Uefa are well pissed off at Barca not reaching the final and a poor English team with 10 men dumping them out .

that makes it even better shaken

Never seen Cole play like that in the past 5 years - shame he won't play like that at the Euro's....

that result will really piss off platini ffp will be in the news very soon again.

The English must be punished for this audacity, measures must be put in place immediately to prevent them winning the final. New rules must be rushed through by Platini and co. Each team must have at least half their players from the home nation, like Barcelona, any team that defends with 10 men for more than 30 minutes must forfeit a goal.Any team that fails to have a shot on target for 30 minutes must forfeit a goal and if any team fails to win a corner in each half then a penalty must be awrded to the other side after 90 minutes.

Is this the death knell for Tikki-takki?
I hope so, as I think we suffered this season with falling too much in love with the wonderful passing game that goes nowhere, Sunderland for example, similar echoes to last night where we pulverised them for 90mins with shot after shot, but without scoring, then a breakaway goal sealed it at the death.
There has to be a more incisive method that doesn't resort to passing for passing sake, when a shot is on, take it and someone try to get the rebound ( Tevez at Norwich for instance, followed up Yaya's shot) there needs to be a varied method that tries to catch them out. That's why it's sometimes good to give the opposition the ball. As much as I admire pretty football, Barca can be as monotonous and boring as a ticking clock sometimes.
At the end of the day, it's goals. not % play, number of passes that that wins games, Chelsea played fantastic, but having 4 key players suspended for the final will not be good for the game, I can only see BM winning...

You're writing off Real Madrid at home? brave man

Well how pissed off are Uefa gonna be now, none of their Spanish darlings able to reach the final. That really couldn't have worked out better......well done Bayern .

Couldn't have turned out better.

Think this will be a great game. Thought Chelsea were magnificent.

Think it proved one thing.....La Liga is a great league for forwards. Look at Messi 63 goals this season and Ronaldo 57.

The 2 semi finals against Munich and Chelsea highlighted that neither player, though brilliant, would score that many goals in the above leagues, due to the strength of defending.

Think Ronaldo scored a good few for the Rags blue.

Once they got to the edge of the 18 yeard area Barca had no incisive movement whatsoever - the ball just went round to the left, then to the right - as did Chelsea's midfield shield. No one appeared to be making any through runs that could have been chipped over to, and (unlike last night which had plenty) none of the Barca players seemed to want to take anyone on. This for me is the esssence of bad tippy tappy - no plan B beyond trying to play it around everyone and avoiding direct 'conflict' at all costs.

When Torres came on, I suspected that Chelsea's left might open up a little - an lo, Alves began to get some space as Fernando's mind didn't seem as drilled on defensive awareness. Hence the offside 'goal'. I would have kept pounding this avenue for a while, create some panic elsewhere as everyone tried to cover for him, then use the new gaps.

torres got lucky as he was shit until he scored.

i don't mind tippy tappy too much so long as you can get most results and do have an alternative. We benefited early on when we let teams attack us a little, that opened them up and we could hit on the counter with devastating effect.

None of the TV pundits mentioned that Torres was dreadful until he scored. He was wandering back towards his teammates when he received that ball - and admittedly kept his cool to score but had done nothing but screw up until that chance.

Did you guys hear Gary Neville when he scored? I had to laugh!!

I was saying at the time that was such a bad substitution by Di Matteo as Drogba can hold up the ball much better. I guess I was wrong in the end, but I think Di Matteo got lucky as, as you say Wendi he was dreadful.

In terms of Gary Neville, what a pundit he is turning out to be. I hated him a few years back but I really like him for Sky. And even though he probably wants Chelsea to fall behind in the Prem you could hear his passion for an English team to get to the final. It was brilliant!

I wonder if his missus has heard that before...