(Image Source: Chelsea Football Club )

 

BY HANK KOEBLER

ANCHOR CARISSA LOETHEN

 

With the Champions League title on the line, Chelsea center forward Didier Drogba took matters into his own hands… or in this case, feet.


Two minutes to go, down 1-0, Drogba ties it up with a header.

The game comes down to a penalty shootout. Munich’s Schweinsteiger bounces it off the goalpost. Drogba closes it out for Chelsea.

Drogba’s late-game heroics brought Chelsea a 4-3 win and its first-ever Champions League title in a game in which the LA Times ’ Kevin Baxter says Chelsea was statistically outplayed.

“The Germans dominated every statistic but the final score, putting more than twice as many shots on goal, drawing nearly twice as many fouls and taking 20 corner kicks to just one for Chelsea.”

The victory caps off an improbably successful run the team has made since firing its coach in February and promoting assistant Roberto di Matteo as interim coach. BBC Sport ’s staff chronicles the team’s odds-defying journey.

“They were big outsiders of the four teams that were in the semifinals, whoever they got. They managed to get Barcelona and they managed to get through it."

"Well they’ve had an amazing journey, they’ve got the final. To me, they should’ve been out against Napoli.”

Di Matteo says he’s not yet thinking about whether the team’s inconceivable success under his guidance will lead to the team removing his ‘interim’ label. The Guardian has the video.

“I don’t know what the future’s going to hold. We are just very happy tonight to have made history for this club. It’s the first time that we have won this competition and it’s very difficult to win it."

Though di Matteo tip-toed through the subject in the post-game press conference, an ESPN analyst says di Matteo’s performance justifies Chelsea offering him a long-term contract.

“He deserves to get something from there. He won the UEFA cup, sorry, the Champions League, and he proved in three months that he had the power of taking care of a big dressing-room star.”