Chelsea: Win the biggest prize, in the biggest game, beating the best

Chelsea missed out on the FA Cup, just squeaked into the Champions League next season, but it won the biggest prize of all, the Champions League! To be the best, you have to beat the best. And that’s what the Blues did with an impressive 1-0 victory over a powerful Manchester City side. Chelsea won the biggest title in European football, or in anywhere else in football for that matter. Chelsea is the Champion of the world, frankly.

But let’s make one thing perfectly clear, this club was not inferior to the powder blues of Manchester City. They were better. They deserved the win and they got it because they earned it. They were the better side. Anything else, well, is baloney.

It had been written in this space before that Chelsea had an edge over City in one respect: the fear factor. Now, this didn’t mean that the powerful City side was cowering under its bed in fright. Rather, the Blues’ two consecutive wins over City under Tuchel had to create doubt, considerable doubt that it could, just might happen again. Comments that team selections were the reasons for those past two recent defeats and that City had crushed Chelsea earlier in the season didn’t hold water. That earlier tie happened before manager Thomas Tuchel arrived. One thing was perfectly clear, the Chelsea Blues were not afraid of Manchester City. They weren’t afraid of them at all due to beating them twice earlier. They made that clear from start to finish in the most important final of all.

So, while it could have been a surprise to some, it shouldn’t have been any real shock. This Chelsea team under new manager, Thomas Tuchel, was a different squad in both formations and in several players inserted into the side who had previously been relegated to bench roles under Frank Lampard. Like Roberto Di Matteo unexpectedly did nine years ago, Tuchel entered mid-season and took the Champions League title! They were so-called underdogs, but they were a force to be reckoned with nevertheless.

Chelsea dominated the early stages and could have scored a goal or two more along the way as misses by Timo Werner and Christian Pulisic could have put City totally on its heels. That was not to happen. Instead, the “goal-line ghost” continued to plague the royal blues and kept the score even. But that tie score was not to prevail because of one of Chelsea’s rising German stars. A player who had been highly criticized by those who didn’t seem to comprehend all that faced the budding German superstar, Kai Havertz’ in arriving in the UK in far less than optimum circumstances and then in his contracting Covid-19. Conversely, all of the faith of those who kept behind the young star was justified and rewarded as he scored a beautiful goal before half-time and that was enough to take that great cup back to London.

There were tremendous performances in addition to those of young Havertz, of course, and they will be covered later or elsewhere. Suffice it to say that the Blues were the better side in three out of four games against City this season and in all of them under Thomas Tuchel. City is the presumptive Premier League favorite next season and the target that Chelsea will have to overcome from the start of the season to its finish to take the title, the most prestigious league title of them all.

Yet, while that goal awaits next season, Chelsea fans all over the globe can celebrate that the Blues beat the best and now are the best side in Europe.