RAIN IN SPAIN EASES THE PAIN
After trying time off the field, Euro rivals restore credibility
HONOURS even – if honour still has anything to do with it a week after the Super League was being mooted.
For a competition neither of these sides were fussed about when they signed up for a breakaway, Chelsea and Real Madrid both seemed keen enough to reach the final.
So a tantalising rematch next week awaits, teed up entirely on sporting merit. In all honesty, it was just good at last to get away from the name calling and back to some high-quality European football in whatever format.
Whatever the gods of football have made of it all, clearly somebody had put the nose out of joint of the a fairly major weather deity. The rain at Real Madrid’s reserve-team ground, being used while the Bernabeu is rebuilt, was nothing short of biblical. It sprang up shortly after Chelsea had taken the lead, thus marking the end of not one but two dry periods.
Former Chelsea goalkeeper Thibaut Courtois had not conceded for six hours and 44 minutes when Christian Pulisic did nothing short of embarrass him.
Winning the foot race to Antonio Rudiger’s ball over the top by a distance, the American kept his head and navigated a route around the goalkeeper before picking a gap between the defenders on the line.
It was no more than Chelsea deserved and probably slightly less. But then that’s the risk you run sticking with Timo Werner up front at the moment. His latest sitter spurned after 10 minutes was teed up for him by Pulisic four yards out and yet somehow he shot near enough to Courtois for the keeper to divert the ball away with an outstretched foot.
Even players with the experience of Real were struggling to cope with the surprising wing-back system Zinedine Zidane had gone with to mirror Chelsea’s line-up, and for the first quarter everything seemed to go the way of the visitors.
But out of nowhere, Karim Benzema turned a half-chance 20 yards out into a wickedly-curling shot that clipped the post.
The France international does not miss many, and sure enough a deep Marcelo delivery, headed back across goal by Casemiro was flicked on and Benzema casually took the ball on his chest before twisting to fire it into the roof of the net.
Chelsea kept their belief and with Luka Modric and Toni Kroos uncharacteristically deep, there was space for players such as N’Golo Kante to keep the away side pushing forwards. With recovering former
Blues legend Eden Hazard only on the bench Pulisic seemed determined to give his old No.10 shirt its best airing for a while, and Chelsea soon re-established themselves.
Zidane seemed to instil a bit more defensive discipline in his players at half-time and as tiredness set in, the tempo began to drop.
Cue the almost inevitable introduction of Hazard.
At the same time Tuchel made three changes and initially it was energy rather than enigma that swung the pendulum slightly back in Chelsea’s favour.
Then Real again began to have the better of it. Not enough, though, to make any impact on the deadlock.
Benzema had a shot blocked; a Chelsea free-kick was comfortably saved and that was about it.
That Pulisic away goal may just be enough for the return.
Certainly those fine margins are what European football is all about.