Nick Waddell

Real Betis (h) - Arsenal (LC) - Blackburn

Real Betis (h)

To me, European football nights are what it's all about. Stuff the
league, sod the domestic cup competitions, they're good to win( and
how long did we wait ) but only serve to qualify you for the major
event. I guess it's all down to listening to the radio under the duvet
as a child in the seventies when English clubs were dominating Europe
and all you could hear was static and some commentator on a telephone
link.

Since it's been four months since the last home European tie, I'd
forgotten just how nervous I get before and during these games and
last night didn't do my already fragile nerves much good either.

The game was immediately preceded by a minute's silence in memory of
Peter Sillett who scored the goal that won Chelsea their one and only
league title ( a penalty after that cheating bastard Billy Wright had
handled on the line ).

One minute into the game and Betis almost scored. A free kick outside
the box was played to Jarni who unleashed a tremendous shot.
Thankfully, Ed De Goey pulled off an equally great save. Shit I
thought, we're in for a spot of bother tonight. However, things did
improve. Chelsea started to exert a bit of pressure, Vialli was denied
by a good save at the near post and Zola hit a wonderful free kick
that swerved massively and came off the post. Vialli then hit the bar
trying to head over the advancing keeper and Chelsea had a few
corners. Then Betis started to play the ball around and Chelsea just
couldn't get hold of it. Betis seemed to have more players on the
pitch and with Di Matteo playing out wide and Wise fairly anonymous in
midfield, there was no-one to win the ball back. Every time the ball
fell to a blue shirt, possession was quickly surrendered. When the
Betis goal came, it was hardly a surprise. Finidi George ran on to an
excellent ball played between Clarke and Le Beouf and shot powerfully
across Lan to tie up the score on aggregate. Two minutes later, a
slack back pass from Mad Frankie Sinclair almost let George in again
and the defense looked askance at each other. I consoled myself with
the fact that was MFS's horrendous mistake for the game(there's always
one), but my fingernails were starting to take a bit of punishment and
I'd only brought thirty fags for the game.

However, this served as a swift kick up the backside and after that,
things began to look a little more solid at the back. Up front, things
were starting to happen as well. Vialli collected a good ball out wide
and went past his defender, almost. The dirty bastard upended him and
earned himself a booking. Zola played in a great free kick, just out
of reach of the keeper and right on the edge of the six yard box.
Cometh the hour cometh the man. MFS came charging into the box, his
marker trailing disconsolately in his wake, and powered a header into
the goal. The keeper, appropriately named Prats, made it easier by
diving the wrong way but even if he'd guessed right, I doubt he'd have
saved it anyway. Cue wild celebration in SW6, and MFS looked mildly
chuffed as well.

From then on until half time I gnawed at my rapidly disappearing
fingernails and smoked myself into a nicotine psychosis waiting for
the break. Betis looked the better team, certainly in terms of
possession but they rarely created any chances. The "penalty"
incident, when Le Beouf brought down a Betis player, looked to be
marginally outside the area from my vantage point in the MHU but
they've been given before. The resulting free kick was hammered into
the wall and rebounded off Clarke before going out wide where Clarke
again charged down a fierce shot.

Summary of the first half, Betis playing better but Chelsea making the
quality chances.

I completely missed the kerfuffle at the beginning of the second, when
the referee sent off the Betis manager for something (though I suspect
it was everything) he said. This incident set the tone of the second
half. The referee, from Germany, now saw his chance to shine and from
then on, in his eyes, there were twenty two players and one star on
the pitch. He'd obviously come to enjoy himself and I suspect that he
is some sort of frustrated thespian since he seemed to enjoy the
theatrics of refereeing so much. The linesmen entered into the spirit
of things by signaling off-sides and throw ins with a extravagant wave
of the flag before indicating which side had the advantage. Memorable
bits from the referee's repertoire included marching half the length
of the pitch, arm outstretched in that famous gesture to tell MFS to
get off the pitch when injured, and a late booking produced such a
dramatic flourish of the yellow card that half the crowd began to
imitate him.

The second half started with Chelsea putting on a bit more pressure,
Vialli seemed to have sorted things out during the break and after
about ten minutes, Di Matteo challenged for a clearance, ran into the
box, turned the defender inside out and calmly curled the ball into
the top corner of the net. Again, Prats lived up to his name and dived
the wrong way. The crowd responded with a few chants of "Are you
watching Manchester?"(though "Are you watching South Coast and Wales
would have been more accurate") and "One team in Europe". I thought it
was too early to start the celebrations, and it seemed that plenty of
other people thought likewise. The rest of the half settled into a
pattern of Betis possession on the half way line from which they
created virtually nothing. Lan was almost a spectator in the second
half. Chelsea responded with some dangerous counter attacking that
seemed to wear down Betis, who became more and more frustrated. The
referee deemed that any physical contact between a Chelsea player and
a Betis player should result in a free kick to Betis, but I suppose
that's German refereeing for you. (Not that the Betis players needed
any encouragement to fall over). Anyway, it kept us amused.

Vialli started to look knackered after the hour but battled on
bravely. I don't know why Rix didn't replace him with Flo, since the
amount of room our forwards were getting would have suited his game
admirably, as well as putting the shit up Betis, but I guess he was
just protecting his job. Steve Clarke had a good game as left back,
his experience showed on a number of occasions as he more or less had
Finidi George in his pocket for much of the game.


Oh, and Betis had a perfectly good goal ruled out for offside. Ha ha!

With ten minutes to go I began to relax a little. This involved
smoking only one cigarette at a time and asking my mate the time every
thirty seconds. Just when it seemed that the game was over, it was.
Zola played a ball out wide for Lambourde to run on to, he passed to
Vialli just inside the box who touched it on for Zola who cracked in a
left foot thunderbolt from twenty yards out inside the keepers left
hand post. This time Prats guessed right but it didn't matter. Zola
was sprinting into the crowd, obviously delighted to have scored and
everyone went mental for a couple of minutes. I just wish he'd scored
it with fifteen minutes to go so we could have a good chance to relax
and enjoy the rest of the game, as well as rubbing everyone else's
nose in it.

The final whistle went with Betis in possession, deep in their own
half. Rather a reflection on the game.

Arsenal (League Cup) - Are you Tottenham in disguise?

"Don't worry, you'll have plenty of time to make it to your soccer game, or whatever it is you do." my boss said to me scornfully on Tuesday evening when asking me to go up to a client's site up in Boreham Wood on Wednesday.

There's nothing like an accurate prediction ... and that was nothing like one. At half past six in the evening, I'm sitting in a traffic jam in some God forsaken north London suburb, silently screaming at my boss in fluent profane, muttering all sort of dire consequences if I should miss so much as a minute of the game, while he's sitting there, perfectly calm, wondering what the fuss is all about and occasionally saying comforting things like "It's only a game you know.", "You'll probably lose anyway." and "Who did you say you were playing again?"

At the start of the season, I didn't really give a shit about the Hokey-Cokey Cup, I didn't even go to the Southampton game despite being able to get in for free with my season ticket, I just couldn't be bothered. But this was Vialli's first game in charge, against those other tossers from north London, and against a team that seem to have had the Indian sign over Chelsea for the last few seasons. Well I'd be damned if I was going to miss this one, and I thought "It's about time we gave this lot a good stuffing". Quite simply, Arsenal owed us and tonight we're going to collect.

New manager, new tactics. Play it long and get stuck in. It's pay back time. And did the Arse not like that. The first half hour was dominated by Chelsea, not playing the beautiful game as we, and Arsenal, had become accustomed to, but learning from three defeats against them this season and playing them at their own game. Everything was played at a furious pace, the Arse players weren't given any time to dwell on the ball in midfield, Doobs and Beefy snuffed out what little threat there was from their emasculated attack, special mention has to go to Clarke who played Overmars off the park and made sure he hardly got a look in.

Ten minutes into the game, Zola played over a free-kick, Arsenal cleared to the edge of the area where Di Matteo played it back into the crowd of players. Hughes somehow found time to turn and fire in a shot beyond Massinger.

1-0 to the Che-el-sea

After that, Arsenal somehow seemed to lose the plot. They obviously hadn't been expecting the ferocity with which Chelsea came at them ( even Dan "Nancy Boy" Petrescu was getting stuck in ) and they lost their discipline. I lost count of the number of bookings in the first half, but it seemed that there were twice as many Arse booked as Chelsea. This helped to whip up one of the best atmospheres at the Bridge in years, a sign of what the place can be like but probably won't.

The rest of the half was a bit of a blur, Arsenal only coming back in the last fifteen minutes or so when Chelsea seemed to tire a bit. Not that they looked any sort of threat, but where have we heard that before. I said to my mates at half time that that was the best forty five minutes we'd played against Arsenal all season. The next forty five was even better.

About two minutes after the restart, Le Saux had the ball out wide and Viera steamed over and flattened him in front of the aghast Arse fans. Second booking, bye bye Patrick, cue Arse fans throwing debris onto the pitch. Now, I'm not sure how much Ken Bates pays for the services of the stewards in the West Stand, but he might as well save his money and not bother. They did what Arse are going to win this season, fuck all. But I digress. Losing Viera in midfield for the type of tackle he's been getting away with for two years against Chelsea gutted the Arse.

Five minutes later, Hughes stamped viscously on an Arse midfielder to win possession and passed inside to Di Matteo who ran towards goal. Twenty five yards out, with two Arsenal defenders closing him down he unleashed an absolute beauty of a shot and scored one of the finest goals I've seen at Chelsea. Stamford Bridge simply erupted in orgasmic celebration ( except the Arsenal fans, but fuck them, they've no taste anyway ). I thought the top of my head was going to come off. Even as I type this I'm still tingling. This is why people go to football, nothing, NOTHING, gives you a buzz like that.

Two minutes later, Petrescu collected a badly cleared corner, juggled the ball past the first defender, stepped inside the second and fired the ball into the corner of the goal.

Now, I'm not usually one for gloating but I've taken too much stick off Arsenal fans in the recent past to let this opportunity pass. There was still about thirty five minutes of the match to go and Arsenal fans were leaving the ground. Brilliant!

"We can see you sneaking out"
"You're not very good"
"Ten men went to laugh, went to laugh at Arsenal"
"Fuck 'em all"

and best of all

"Are you Tottenham in disguise?"

For some reason, that one got quite a reaction out of the Arse fans.

Chelsea then shut up shop and let ten man Arsenal chase the game. Chances were few and far between, though I do remember Massinger saving well from Di Matteo on his near post. ( I believe that this was the first and only time he saved a goal bound shot from a Chelsea player over the two legs ). Luca ended his first game in charge as player manager after eighty minutes when he was subbed for Newton and left to a standing ovation ( except for the Arsenal fans, but then they've no class ). This proved to be a crap decision, since Newton looked like he'd already been playing for eighty minutes and Arsenal immediately pulled one back via a Bergkamp penalty. Typical Chelsea, outclass the opposition for most of the game and then threaten to blow it in the last ten minutes. One more Arsenal goal and it'd be extra time.

Thankfully, everyone pulled together and the defense held firm, Arsenal never looked like pulling back a second, but then they'd never looked like getting the first. The last five minutes ( or so it seemed ) were largely spent in the Arsenal half, down by the corner flags, wasting time. Arsenal were hoist by their own petard. For years they've been doing that to others and they didn't like it up 'em.

Delirious scenes at the final whistle. the players looking happier than they have for a couple of months and playing much more like a team that's going to win things this season. A timely performance with the games we've got coming up in the next month or six weeks. A great night to be a Chelsea fan.

So, Middlesborough in the final, all together now -

"Score in a minute, we're going to score in a minute"

Chelsea v Blackburn (Mickey Mouse, 3rd Round)

I got to the District line platform at Earl's Court Station at seven thirty last night and it was deserted. This meant that :

a) the game's been called off,
b) I've got the time of kick-off wrong or
c) it's the all singing, all dancing, reconstructed Coca-Cola Cup.

In the past, the winners of this competition have gained entry to the EUFA Cup. This year however, that incentive has disappeared (although the matter is subject to an appeal but I rate their chances of the european place being re-instated about the same as Tottenham's chances of winning the European Cup next season). Furthermore, this entire competition is starting to become something of a joke. During the summer, all sorts of rumours were flying around concerning the future of this emasculated cup competition. Fixtures would be moved forward and the final would be played at Christmas, the cup would be amalgamated with the fizzy pop cup in Scotland for an Anglo-Jocko cup compo, blah, blah, blah, etc, etc.

More recently, things have got even better. The draw for the third round was conducted live on television. Now live draws are not the stuff of exciting television. As recent attempts to liven proceedings up during the FA Cup draws on the BBC have proved, radio is the medium through which they should be conveyed. This year was no different. The television audience were treated to the draw being conducted by some faceless executive from Coca-Cola who nobody's ever heard of, before or since, and a complete twat from the Football League who accompanied the drawing from the bag of a "big" club with the sort of facial expressions that suggested that either he was having some sort of seizure and would soon expire or he was in the process of trying to remove a particularily stubborn strawberry pip from behind his dentures.

This week, the ridiculous factor has almost gone off the scale. I don't know where the Football League get their spokesmen from, and I don't really care, but I hope they kept the receipt. They're completely barking. I nearly crashed my car laughing when one of their resident lunatics said on the radio that the Coca-Cola Cup was "of paramount importance to football in this country". This country, Jesus, you're not even on the same fucking planet.

On Tuesday afternoon, another loony announced that any club trying to field weak team to protect their internationals from yet another game would be thrown out of the competition "without the right of appeal." A couple of hours later, the Football League announced an abrupt about face and declared that no-one would be expelled from the competition this year. They would have announced this sooner but the telephone lines were clogged with Premiership and Nationwide first division managers phoning up to explain that it was necessary to field a team of under 12s this week and could they please be excused attendance in the next round, thank you very much.

Anyway, I digress. Last night's game.

They scored, we scored. After extra time Chelsea won on penalties.

It wasn't quite as dire as that but it was close. Blackburn defended well and played the offside trap with a ruthless efficiency. Both goals were well taken, some bloke for them with shocking hair for Blackburn, and DiMatteo latching on to a good ball after running from deep to spring the offside trap and put himself one on one with Timmy. No contest really, Roberto _always_ seems to take those chances.

Vialli got himself sent off for elbowing one of their players in the face off the ball. Suspensions only apply in other fizzy pop cup ties so Luca will be suspended until the second semi.

The crowd kept warm be cheering everything Frank Sinclair did to the rafters, which only encouraged him, and shouting "Offside" at one of the linesmen every time a Chelsea player got the ball. This went for about ten minutes and got very boring. However, the girl behind me, who hasn't uttered a peep so far this season, thought it was funny, so I had to put up with it during the penalty shoot-out. Tut!

Before the penalties began someone said it was Southampton at home in the next round. It's amazing how important these things become when you know it's another "free" home game on the old season ticket.

I knew we'd win the penalty shoot-out since we had Hitchcock in goal and he's got a great record of winning them.

The only other thing was the attendance. Either Jax got it wrong on the web site, or some tout was stuck outside with a sack full of unsold tickets (now _there's_ a happy thought).