Europa League: Chelsea Makes History
Chelsea is a European champion. Again.
After a dramatic win in last year’s Champions League final against Bayern Munich, Chelsea added the Europa League trophy to its haul by beating Benfica, 2-1, in Amsterdam on Wednesday with a goal in stoppage time.
Chelsea becomes the first English team to win all three major European club competitions, having already claimed the Champions League and the now-defunct Cup Winners’ Cup.
The win came against the backdrop of a tumultuous season, but it was also characteristic of a resilient and determined team that has made an art of collecting trophies in unconventional fashion.
For much of the campaign, it looked as though Chelsea would perform far below its own standards. After a slow start in the Premier League, Chelsea was left trying to secure a Champions League spot for next season’s tournament. In addition, the Champions League-winning coach Roberto Di Matteo was dismissed after a 3-0 loss to Juventus in November, a loss that essentially eliminated the club from this season’s competition.
Di Matteo’s dismissal after he won two major trophies, along with the appointment of the unpopular Rafael Benítez as the interim manager, raised several questions and cast doubt over the team’s direction. A loss to Corinthians in the World Club Cup final in December only added to those reservations.
The Europa League final presented Chelsea with an opportunity for redemption. For much of the match, though, it was Benfica, a Portuguese team, that looked to be the more likely winner. Much the way Bayern dominated in its final against Chelsea last year, Benfica imposed its will early and was the better team.
Adding to Chelsea’s woes, it went into the game without two of its most influential players: Eden Hazard missed out with a hamstring injury, and John Terry, the team’s captain and a veteran defender, missed his second consecutive European final after failing to recover from an ankle injury.
Benfica created chance after chance while its opponent appeared largely uninspired. Benfica dominated possession in the first half and continually managed to pass its way around the Chelsea defense, lacking only a final touch or finish to score. That pattern continued into the second half, which made Fernando Torres’s opening goal even more surprising.
Torres had taken a knock earlier in the game, and his teammates had struggled to find him up to that point. Then, out of nowhere, in a three-touch sequence around the hour mark, Chelsea found its way past Benfica to take the lead.
Goalkeeper Peter Cech sent a ball forward, which midfielder Juan Mata delicately chipped Torres’s way. Torres rounded Benfica goalkeeper Artur to score his ninth goal in Europe this season. Only Real Madrid’s Cristiano Ronaldo and Borussia Dortmund’s Robert Lewandowski have scored more this season.
Benfica persisted and continued to put pressure on Chelsea. It was finally rewarded when the referee Bjorn Kuipers awarded Benfica a penalty. Óscar Cardozo stepped up and leveled the score.
A year earlier, Chelsea also had its back to the wall when Bayern Munich scored with less than 10 minutes to go. In that game, Chelsea improved as the match progressed. Sure enough, Chelsea did it again.
Despite the equalizer, Chelsea seemed to gain confidence and began to display its resilience and determination of last year. With the clock running down, Benítez surprisingly insisted on not making any substitutions; his counterpart, Jorge Jesus, used all three substitutes in the final 12 minutes of the match.
In the final minutes, defender Branislav Ivanovic leaped over everyone to hit a looping header for the match-winning goal.
Chelsea now joins Bayern Munich, Ajax and Juventus in an elite group of teams that have won all three major club competitions (the Champions League, the Europa League/UEFA Cup, and the Cup Winners’ Cup). It also become only the second European team to win both major competitions back to back and the first to hold them at the same time.
Benítez, meanwhile, will leave the club at the end of the season with an illustrious record. He became the second coach to win a major European club trophy with three teams, following the German coach Udo Lattek.
Torres and Mata also join an exclusive list of players, becoming the third and fourth players to have won the World Cup, the European Championship, the Europa League and the Champions League in their careers, after the German players Jürgen Kohler and Andreas Möller.
The exhilarating finish came near the end of a long and tiring season for Chelsea, which was playing its 68th game. But despite all the turbulence surrounding the club, the owner Roman Abramovich can be content knowing that his club won its 11th trophy in his 10 years in charge and made history, again.
Subscribe Feed (RSS)
0 comments:
Post a Comment