Chelsea FC’s Five Most Heartbreaking Moments
By Alex Mosey
5 – Suarez’s Last Gasp Equaliser (Liverpool 2-2 Chelsea, April 2013 )
We begin our travels of woe at Anfield on a sunny Sunday afternoon in April 2013. With the controversial Rafa Benitez at the helm, Chelsea were looking to guarantee Champions League football for the next season in what was one of the tightest races for a top 4 finish the Premier League has ever seen (we all remember the stories of Chelsea having to play Arsenal a third time in order to separate the two in the standings).
Anfield was a ground Chelsea had had trouble winning at in previous seasons, but goals from Oscar and Eden Hazard seemed to have clinched the all important three points. Most importantly, Luis Suarez, who’s handball had gifted us the penalty Hazard converted, was having a poor match. What happened in the final stages of the game is not only infamous but now topical. In an attempt to vent his frustration at having been comprehensively neutralised by Branislav Ivanovic’s defending, Suarez proceeded to bite him on the arm. Suarez was already labelled as a pantomime villain in English football after having been charged with racist remarks towards Patrice Evra, but this seemed to represent a new level of animosity. After all, biting was an offence that few had actually seen him commit the first time around at Ajax. As the replays were shown, I find it hard to believe any Chelsea fans were not rendered utterly speechless and dumbfounded.
In fairness to the officials, the ball was not near the incident, and a bite was probably very far down their list of expected infractions to look out for. The fact remains that he had gotten away with biting one of our own. The game turned into one of those ‘Chelsea vs. everyone else’ occasions, and, with the inevitability of rain in England or Javier Hernandez scoring against us, a Sturridge cross in the 6th of 5 minutes of injury time found Suarez who made sure to rob us of two important points. The last second nature of this goal coupled with the sense of injustice qualifies this moment as one of the most heartbreaking in recent years.