“Mmm sex texts”

by Chris Tobin

So John Terry and his managerial team have managed to make their way through the arduous task of disposing of Barcelona from this seasons Champions League, as I trolled the internet for a truly objective slant on Chelsea and their Champions League foray, I would be met by a media eulogising and completely over the top reporting on this “great club” and its “great” achievement on reaching the Champions League final.

What is clearly lacking in this southern softy love in from those with bias intent, tapping away subjectively on their typewriters from their London ivory towered news desk, is what is known as perspective.

I am being told this is the greatest defensive exhibition in Champions League history – against the odds display, a fairy-tale that Hans Christian Andersen would have had difficulty believing. A display that at one point would find Gary Neville having an orgasm live on air. Did we really witness at the Camp Nou in Barcelona the greatest of Champions League evenings – the greatest in Chelsea Football Clubs plastic flag waving history – perhaps the reason their detractors sing that they have no actual history.

Firstly we have to dissect what this particular victory means to those players – the opportunity to win either the biggest trophy in European football or, as an alternative, yet another loser’s medal for Messrs, Cole, Lampard and Drogba. They have not won anything yet; so how historical that semi-final becomes has yet to be determined, it will only become a historical or great night if indeed Chelsea go on to win the final and their first Champions League trophy.

These same highly paid professional footballers, who are forever kissing their club badges emblazoned on those blue shirts, are the same shower of mercenaries who found themselves unable to give their all earlier in the season under AVB, thus treating supporters and paymaster Abramovich with distain in the process. Suddenly the wind has changed and they have done their club and fans PROUD.

It amazes me how the same media hounds who were quite belligerent earlier in this season toward those very same players and Chelsea Football club, now easily find themselves riding a different crest of a wave, and beating a quite different tune on their drums.

All the time negating to mention this is a side amassed with millions of pounds – a side that quite clearly should be in Champions League finals most years. It should not be a surprise that Chelsea have progressed, no more than a surprise that a waning Barcelona have been dethroned.

Earlier in Chelsea’s Champions League programme Ashley Cole would refuse to be a substitute in the key game at Napoli. This very morning he is being lauded as a hero on that greatest of nights. The response from the media regarding Ashley and that evening, are in contrast to the way Carlos Tevez was treated for a similar misdemeanour, which said hacks are intent on not letting Carlos forget. Well, he is Argentinian after all.

Mr Cole would tell Sky immediately after the win in Barcelona “This shows we are all in it together” – Really Ashley do you not mean Mr, Frank, John and Didier have decided if we are playing then we will try, but attempt to drop one of my gang and we will s*** upon this club, its owner and manager, from a huge height.

A club whose captain has a narcissistic approach to leadership, self-promotional before all else, and most importantly has a monotonous regularity in bringing shame upon himself and his club. We have not even started on his Pathological Lying Syndrome – When the entire footballing world says BLACK poor John insists it is WHITE [no pun intended toward his upcoming racism trail].

For those poor souls writing for the red-tops and the like- I would like to give you two truly GREAT Champions League nights involving a couple of northern clubs, where the prize was not one of opportunity but of actual silver, where during those campaigns no players disgraced themselves along the way. Where true heroics from real captains would procure Europe’s greatest prize.

Manchester United would in 1999 trail Bayern Munich in a Champions League final played in the Camp Nou Barcelona by a goal to nil when they would strike twice in three minutes of injury time added at the end of the game that would go down in United folklore.

Two of United’s greatest players – Paul Scholes and club captain Roy Keane – would miss out on the final after being suspended from semi-final bookings picked up whilst genuinely trying to fire their club into the final. There wasn’t  a knee up the arse in sight and no petulance during the campaign toward that final. It would be one of the greatest nights in Champions League history.

In 2005 with not a £50 million pound striker to call upon, Liverpool would even surpass United’s 1999 antics in what is universally regarded as “The Greatest Champions League Final”. With a squad more akin to a championship side [And not a very good one] Liverpool would overturn a 3-0 half-time deficit to A.C. Milan, aided with an inspired captains performance from Steven Gerrard, to somehow end up winning the trophy on penalties, and in turn adding another unforgettable night to the long illustrious history of the club.

The real truth about Champions League and historical nights for English sides will not include the words semi-final, unless that side progresses to win the trophy itself, especially sides with million pound assets. Indeed it should be a rite of passage for those squads.

Fairy-tales consist of Norwich City beating the great Bayern Munich in Europe – a side that possibly cost around £23.50p. A team costing well in excess of £100 million beating a side costing £100 million is not a fairy-tale result, or at least it should not be. Add to that the village idiot should not be portrayed as unfortunate – just because he is the village idiot.

Much as I did not want this piece to be a diatribe toward Chelsea and John Terry, I am not so unhappy that it has come across like it. However I also believe that Chelsea do indeed deserve their place in the final, having outfought their opponents in both quarter and semi-finals. The media though need to appreciate what is achievement and what is not, writing a clubs history before it is made is indeed folly.

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