Champions League Final

For the first time in the history of the European Cup/Champions League or whatever you want to call it, two English sides met in the final. There is nothing like traveling all the way across Europe to play in Moscow when the two teams are just a few hours away. But whatever, Manchester United beat Chelsea in penalties in a dogfight of a match.
There was a lot of interesting pretext going into this one. Manchester United is nine years removed from this historic treble conquest of 1999 but had not won the cup again. A bit of underachieving considering they seemed set to dominate for the next decade. Even Sir Alex said they should have won more. Chelsea on the other hand had never won the cup and brought in Jose Mourinho for the specific purpose. He failed every time including two semifinal defeats. He was sacked at the start of the season and replaced by Avram Grant who led a late season charge to challenge for the Premiership and a place in the final. It was great work for a replacement.
Now on to the match itself or at least fast forwarding past the first third of an hour. It was a real snoozer until Cristiano Ronaldo put Man. United up 1-0 with a perfectly placed header after getting on the end of Wes Brown’s floated cross. Michael Essien had done a good job at right-back to contain Ronaldo up until that point but was lost at this decisive moment as the Portuguese winger showed off one of the more underrated abilities of his game.
Thankfully that goal woke everyone up and the match began to pick up. Chelsea carved out a couple of long range efforts and Carlos Tevez almost doubled the advantaged for Man. United when his diving header was blocked at point blank range by Petr Cech after Ronaldo’s great run and cross. And it looked like they would go into the break with the 1-0 score line before confusion struck the Man. United backline. A long shot was blocked in the box but Rio Ferdinand and Edwin Van de Sar both failed to deal with the scraps and Frank Lampard pounced to equalize right at the halftime whistle.
But while another goal was exciting it condemned the second half to defense-first football. It would really would have been great if the score would have stayed at 1-0 because that would have made Chelsea chase the game in second half leading to more open play but instead with a tie score, both sides seemed to afraid to get to adventurous.
With about 20 minutes left in normal time, the feeling began to sink in that this game was going to extra time and both sides began to dig in for the long haul. As the rain began to fall more heavily the match turned into a World War I trench-style war of attrition. There were massive clashes of bodies in the midfield in a battle for control in the games most important area. There were desperation clearances and saves for the defenders including John Terry’s wonderful denial of Ryan Giggs shot on the line. After Didier Drogba’s sending off it became clear that the two sides really were getting not to like each other and neither was ready to blink first. As the match moved through extra-time, the contest, for players and spectators alike, became painful in so many ways.
And so as the final whistle sounded, the final moved to penalties for the fourth time in eight years. The first two were made for both sides before Ronaldo, using an extreme stutter step saw his effort blocked. Chelsea then made their next two and need only John Terry to seal the deal with the final kick but he slipped and his shot hit the post as Chelsea missed their shot at glory by three inches. United took advantage to by converting their next shot and Van de Sar sealed the deal when he blocked Nikolas Anelka’s shot.
The Red Devils stormed toward their goalkeeper as the champions of Europe after one of the most hard-fought finals in memory.