'Tis a Love of Beauty That Hath Slain Them!

It was July 4, 2007, and as Joey Chestnut crammed a record 66 hot dogs down his gullet to defeat a humbled and perhaps injured Takeru Kobayashi, ushering in golden era of American dominance in the annual event that has yet to see its final mashed up hot dog bun, an ESPN commentator told us that we were witnessing the greatest sporting event in the history of mankind.

And I'd have to agree with him, until tonight.  

Nothing quite offers a study in contrasting philosophies like watching Chelsea play Barcelona.  Barcelona play a beautiful game with one of the greatest players ever to grace the pitch acting as the catalyst, picking apart defenses with brisk passing and constant movement.  

Chelsea do not play that way, talented thought they are.  They are a tougher, more defensive team, who have a hard time stringing passes together in the final third and tend to hope they can strike on the counter.   

Or at least, that's what they had to play against Barcelona.  In the first leg of the Champions League semi-final at home in London, Chelsea had the perfect answer on how you play against the perfect team.  Compact defense, a goal on a single quick counter attack, a shit-ton of luck.  Mix it all together, and you have a rather improbable 1-0 victory.  The question was, can Chelsea do it again in Barcelona?  Can Chelsea hold them to a single goal, maybe pick up a goal themselves, and get through to the final?

Another perfect game?  Impossible.  

And indeed, it wasn't a perfect game by any stretch of even the most liberal imagination.  In the 35th minute Barca carves up the Chelsea defense and Busquets gets a goal.  Two minutes later John Terry gets a red card for being an idiot.  That leaves Chelsea with a man down and, since Gary Cahill has already had an injury, without any central defenders (note that David Luiz is injured, but even if he was healthy he can't seem to stay in position and probably wouldn't have been much good in this situation anyway).  In the 43rd minute Iniesta scores and it all looks over for the Blues.  Barca are rolling, they are winning the game 2-0 giving them a 2-1 aggregate lead, and it looks like Chelsea are going to fall apart in the 2nd half.  

But then? a miracle happens.  Just as I have given up on sending a text reading "John Terry is a fucking idiot" to my boss, which in retrospect I have no real right to say (why I gave up on it I don't know), I look up and Ramires has just been threaded through the Barcelona defense and he chips the keeper.  For those of you keeping score at home, that makes it 2-1.  Chelsea are still losing BUT its 2-2 on aggregate, AND the tie breaker is away goals.  Chelsea have 1 away goal now to Barcelona's none, so if everything stays the same then Chelsea are through.  

But it couldn't possibly, right?  Not with a whole half to play against the mighty Barcelona in front of thousands of hostile fans?

Wrong.  In one of the greatest defensive performances I have ever seen, 10 man Chelsea kept Barcelona at bay, forcing them to pass it around the box endlessly, looking for an opening that almost never came.  The few times that it did Petr Chec saved brilliantly.  

Of course, they couldn't have done it without a shit-ton of luck.  That came early in the second half when Fabregas was awarded a penalty (I don't think Drogba ever touched him, but what goes around comes around), and Lionel Messi seemed sure to give Barcelona the lead and what would have undoubdetly been a win.  He tries to send it over Chec's head instead of slotting it into the corner and it hits the woodwork.  In another instance, Chec just got a finger on a strike from Messi that sent the shot off the post.  

The icing on the cake?  Torres finally scores the goal after fielding a clearance with 50 yards to run, just the keeper to beat, and he manages for once to put the ball in the back of the net.  That seals the game up well into stoppage time 3-2 on aggregate.  Its the most expensive Champions League goal in history, but I don't care.

All of that being said, the most glaring critique of Barcelona is that they don't have a plan B.  No matter what, they stick to their guns and play the football they want to play.  This love of beauty, this great inflexibility, proved to be their downfall.  While this sort of inflexibility seems to be admirable in politics, it doesn't work well when you are out of ideas and Chelsea are playing their balls off. 

This is why soccer is such a great sport.  The only thing I can compare Chelsea's performance to is a goal line stand in football (and by that I mean American football).  You know the other team is going to ram it down your throats, or maybe on one down try for the play action pass, but you man up, get organized, and you keep that little brown ball from crossing the line.  

But where a goal line stand lasts for 4 downs at best (which amounts to probably a mere 30 seconds of real action), watching Chelsea defend against Barcelona was like watching a goal line stand for over 45 minutes. You just can't get anything like it anywhere else.  Not even at the Nathan's Hot Dog Eating Championship.  

Will Chelsea win the final against either Bayern Munich or Real Madrid?  Probably not.  They've had so many players suspended for the next match due to the accumulation of yellow cards that its going to be wonder if they can field a team at all.  The odds have to be against them, and at some point the luck has to run out, but maybe the football gods (or just God in general) will be with them for one more match...

Oh, and when Messi hit the woodwork?  I got up out of my chair and yelled (incorrectly, I might add) "He hit the post!".  I can't remember the last time I was moved to actually get out of my chair and yell incoherently at the TV. Probably when John Kerry came out onto the stage during the Democratic National Convention and, saluting the crowd, said "I'm John Kerry, reporting for duty!"  And as the crowd cheered I stood up and raved at him like a crazy cat lady, because I knew in that moment the election was lost.