The euphoria still eh wear off yet but I'm back in London...what a night...I dunno where we suddenly found all this luck from but...wow.
I made the trip by myself, my usual riding partner couldnt make it. Touched down in Munich around lunchtime and the atmosphere was immense...it was wall to wall fans. Or to be more precise, everyone was a fan, cuz from the taxi drivers to the bar staff to the street cleaners, everyone was backing Bayern. Chelsea fans came out in force, but it was about 30-35 thousand versus 1 million (that is not an exaggeration).
And Bayern fans really saw this as their destiny. They were very respectful and accommodating hosts but they had no doubt that this was their moment in time. For them the 90 minutes was supposed to be a procession to glory. Anyone who saw the show they put on before the kickoff would understand. I don't think that pressure helped those players at all.
Anyway, as yall know, Bayern dominated the match....tactically it was Barcelona all over again. Ribery and Robben went on raid after raid but we defended valiantly. We offered very little offensively, Drogba and Mata were isolated attackers, with Kalou and Bertrand having to concentrate on their defensive duties. It was not good for the nerves at all. To be frank, I still can't believe we got to half time goalless.
Second half, same story....when they scored that offside goal I thought the game was up...until we realised that it was offisde (cue massive celebrations). When they scored for real I thought the game was up......then Torres came on and gave us the offensive spark we needed...and Sir Didier did what he always does.
I will never forget that moment, it felt like slow motion. I was sitting in the corner where Mata took the corner from, between the 6 yard line and the penalty spot (i.e. - where all the players were congregating for the corner). I remember seeing the ball floating in and looking for Drogba...and seeing him eyeing the ball and moving towards it...but there was a Bayern player in front of him who looked like he would get there first. Then, just as the Bayern fella looked to head the ball clear, all of a sudden Drogba was in front of him. Bullet Header.
Pandemonium. Hugging up a setta strangers, drinks flying everywhere as Didier slid towards us with his trademark celebration. I will never forget that
From that point out, I never thought we would lose. The run of luck we were on was just too ridiculous. We were going to win. When Robben took that penalty in extra time, I
knew he wasn't going to score, I was literally smiling as he ran up to take it. Still, penalties was nerve wracking...but you could see that Cech had at least one save in him because he kept diving the right way. And sure enough he came through. Then it was left to Sir Didier to sign off in style. What a legend
The rest of the evening was just euphoric....I dunno if I've ever experienced that. Even when Trinidad drew against Sweden - as happy as we were, we still had England in the back of our minds. This was different. Hard to describe. There was no feeling of relief or release of tension...those feelings didnt matter anymore....it was just pure joy
We spent the next 90 minutes in the stadium palancing and then began to make our way back the city centre. Finally got back to my hotel around 4, sharing a cab with 4 exhausted yet ecstatic random Chelsea fans. Woke up this morning and was ecstatic again when I realised that last night really happened
Shoutout to the Bayern fans who were incredibly gracious losers...most of them stayed to watch the trophy presentation and applauded us. No animosity on their part at all just disappointment. They deserve to win this trophy in the next few years and I hope they do.
