The Man in The Shed

25^th February 2020 – Rematch

It was inevitable that every Chelsea fan would want to re-live our greatest game ever in the lead up to this tie. Could it really be nearly eight years ago ? My proudest football moment was to have been present in Munich that night. The sobering thought was how much better it felt that team was compared to our fledgling squad today. Of course, Bayern just kept motoring along in the intervening years winning title after title. We were definitely the underdogs.

Much preparation by a number of Chelsea fans to raise funding and then complete the logistics for the pre-match display at the Matthew Harding end to remind the German fans what they’d said before the final in 2012. It looked great (even if the wind made raising the banners a challenge. Well played !

Something of a surprise was an unchanged team. I was happy with that.

Most fans near me in the Shed were realistic. We spent most of the first half admiring the Bayern performance. All of the best chances were theirs. A header hit the bar and Caballero was our best player. We looked nervous and it took over 40 minutes to work their goalkeeper (although true to form we created a few chances).

A half time assessment was that Giroud was looking strong again. Mount was spiky as ever and Christensen was looking strong.

Having had us on the ropes for 45 minutes it didn't take Bayern long to hit the sucker punch. And you've got to be pretty special to dummy 40,000 people which is what Lewandowski did by cutting back the ball for Gnabry to score (everyone was convinced he'd shoot). Ok Dave slipped but they were ruthless.

Before we could catch our breath, they'd done us again. Dave was beaten in the air and the same 2 Bayern players cut through us like butter and it was 2-0.

OK, Mount had a chance immediately after their second goal (skied over the bar) but it was 1-way traffic. I was worried they’d do a Tottenham on us.

It was then no surprise that Lewandowski got a goal. The electric speed of Canadian Davies took him away from everyone and it left a simple tap in for the Polish striker.

Damage limitation now. A petulant arm from Alonso gets yellow card. The referee actually uses the VAR screen and the yellow becomes a red (no argument from me).

Game (and tie) over.

There was a noticeable class gap overall but it was frustrating as we created enough chances to have won. Yet again we failed to convert these chances. At least 3 times the ball travelled across the 6-yard box and nobody took the chance of getting the tap in.

Nobody stood out in blue in the 2nd half. James struggled to correctly position himself correctly between attack and defence and we were caught down his side repeatedly.

We’ve got about as far as I thought we could in the competition. Most of the remaining teams in the last 16 are just too good for us.

Time to regroup and prepare for Bournemouth away.