I understand why Chelsea and their supporters feel hard done by, but to think they deserved a host of penalty calls and to be in the final makes no sense.
Barca felt hard done by when Malouda grabbed Henry's shirt and pulled him down in the box in the 1st leg. Chelsea fans want Barca to be gracious about the ref's calls, but noone wants to admit Chelsea dodged one there. Barca also felt hard done by Ballack's professional foul on Iniesta in the 1st leg when he was already on a yellow. He should have been sent off and not seen the pitch in this game. Abidal red card? C'mon. I could be chippy and call other things, but to be honest, those are the only fair calls Barca can say really went against them. After all, is big men playing the game.
On to Chelsea. First pk claim was Alvez manhandling Malouda. Fact is Alvez fouled the man well outside the box and the ref was within his right to let the play continue. If Malouda continued to beat Alvez and got in a cross or shot, the ref would have rightly played advantage. However, Alvez continued to foul the man and wrestle him to the ground on the edge of the box. If that was the first contact, no problem, good call for a penalty. However, like all advantage plays, the ref called the ball back to where he thought the first foul took place which is outside the box. Fair call to the ref.
I wouldn't call any of the tackles on Drogba as penalties. The Abidal one was more dodgy, but Yaya tackle was clean. Actually, just went on tvgolo and watched the highlights. They have a great angle on Abidal's tackle on Drogba and Drogba looks like he took a dive.
Pique handball...penalty. He didn't handle it on purpose, but when your hands that far from your body, you expect to see that get called. Is a hard luck on the defender, but Barca dodge one dey.
Yaya on Anelka. Not a penalty. Anelka ran into trouble and went down as soon as he had nowhere to go.
Ballack shot off Eto'o. I eh go even bother explaing why that was no penalty.
So in my view, Chelsea had 1 clear pk shout. And here is where i find men not making sense. First,there is no guarantee that the penalty is scoring. So whereas it is perfectly fair to say Chelsea should have had the penalty or penalties awarded, you jumping the gun to extend that to saying and they 'deserve' to be in the final.
Let's assume that a penalty was awarded. It does not matter if Chelsea scores or doesn't..noone knows how either team would have reacted after. My point is, it is ridiculous to think that the game would have followed the exact same pattern and you'd have the exact other penalty shouts as well. If the ref called penalty for any one of the situations in question..after it is taken, scored or not..the other penalty shouts are probably irrelevant cuz it is a completely different game after that.
All I can say is Chelsea deserved a chance of at least one penalty and their fans should feel aggrieved for that. If it had happened to Barca, I would feel aggrieved too..Oh wait. It did. Seriously...I hate all the ref controversy. At best, 2 penalty calls were missed over 2 legs..one for Barca and one for Chelsea. Trying to determine who should be in the final based on that is a joke. Each missed decision is a game changer that renders the others moot.
