Manchester United and Chelsea faced each other in a first time all English affair European Cup final in Moscow on the 21st of May with Manutd chasing their 3rd European title while Chelsea were still looking for their illusive first. With Manchester United already being crowned Premier League champions a few weeks ago, all pressure was on Chelsea to justify the millions and millions of dollars injected in to the club by their owner Roman Abromovich by winning the biggest cup in Europe.
Watching the match with my friends at a local club on a huge screen was an amazing experience in itself; the atmosphere was simply amazing with every challenge and shot on goal being met with excessive zeal and animosity between the fans of both teams. The match remeained at deadlock at the end of normal time at 1-1 with Ronaldo opening the score sheet with his 42nd goal of the season by virtue of a great header off a cross by Wes brown. Chelsea managed to scrape a goal in the injury time of the 1st half through Frank Lampard after a slight misunderstanding between Manchester United captain Rio Ferdinand and goal keeper Edvin Van Der Sar.The first half was an all Manutd affair with the Red Devils dominating 65% of the possesion and managing to create quite a few chances which unfortunately could not be converted into goals either due to poor finishing and brilliant saves by Petr Cech.
The second half was a different affair altogether as the Chelsea players were oozing with confidence having levelling the scores at the end of the first half. They came very close to winning the match on two occasions in the 2nd half when Drogba and Lampard saw their brilliant strikes missing the target due to deflections from the crossbars and the side posts. It was an a historic moment for Ryan Giggs when he came on as a substitute to make his 759th appearance for the Red Devils; surpassing Sir Bobby Charlton’s record for making the most appearances for Manchester United.
The game went into extra time after normal time could not separate the two giants. The game became intense in extra time with both teams creating chances and threatening to score but the scenario changed in the 2nd half of extra time; a spat between Carlos Tevez and John Terry turned ugly when tempers flared and other players got involved. Drogba was sent off after being shown a straight red for his indiscipline when he slapped Vidic in front of the referee. The score remained level at the end of half time and the match eventually went to penalties. The penalties were taken at the end at which Manchester United fans were seated giving their players lot of support and confidence. Manutd were the first one to take the penalties and after4 penalties, the score was 3-4 with Ronaldo having his penalty saved by Petr Cech. Nani barely managed to convert the 5th penalty into a goal and all responsibility was left on John Terry to win it for his team as he stepped up to take the 5th penalty. Miracally JT missed even though he managed to get Edvin Van Der Sar to move the other way and the scores were even again. At this moment of time, at the venue where I was watching; all the Manutd fans( including me , Nisar, Sohaib, Arselan) were jumping in their seats like madmen; punching the air and making the life of the Chelsea fans a nightmare withh our chants. Finally a save by Van Der Sar to stop Anelka from scoring helped Manutd to win their third European cup in history and also honouring the Busby Babes who died in a tragic plane accident exactly 50 yeras ago. It was an emotional moment for all Manchester United fans, players and management when Rio Ferdinand and Ryan Giggs lifted the cup in the air marking the dominace of the club in both the domestic and European leagues.
I would like to take this oppurtunity to remind fans of rival clubs including Zulki, Faizan Khan and Ali Hammad Jafri to stop supporting their loser teams as they are no match to the Red devils and will always be a source of embarassment for them.:) GLORY GLORY MANUTD!!! RED DEVILS FOREVER!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!