For me, this tops off an absolutely corking week.
21st February 2012. After a harrowing night in Naples, a dejected Chelsea team left the field fearing that their season was all but in tatters. A swashbuckling Napoli side had exposed serious flaws in the Chelsea setup, and the Andre Villas-Boas gamble looked as though it had backfired.
Fast forward three months and the impossible has been completed. Out-passed and for the most part out-played, but two prestigious trophies to add to the cabinet and what threatened to be a disastrous campaign has proven to be one of Chelsea's most successful.
Alan Hansen famously said 'you can't win anything with kids'. AVB seemed to adopt the opposite tactics. The old guard of Drogba, Lampard and Terry were cast into the wilderness as new blood was shoehorned in.
It didn't work. AVB came in too strong, trying to make too many big and bold decisions in too short a space of time. When Robbie Di Matteo came in, I was like many, speculative. Here was a man who's previous managerial experience had seen him slide down the league with West Bromwich Albion, who's own survival came courtesy of a man who resembles a nocturnal woodland creature.
But he has rejuvenated the old and the new. Drogba is playing at a level I thought had been taken away by time. The sorry carcass of Fernando Torres has found that yard of pace and that swagger that made him the world's most fearsome striker only a few years ago. Even players like John Obi Mikel and Salomon Kalou seem to be playing in a way that I've only previously seen from their FIFA 2012 counterparts.
And last night's victory against Bayern Munich showed that effort, resilience and a huge slice of luck will always triumph over skill.
The performance at the Nou Camp in the semi-final was nothing short of heroic. Chelsea stopped the greatest attacking unit the footballing world has ever seen score for 45 minutes with a man light. So they sat back and defended. What were you expecting, to go out and get hammered 7-0 like Bayer Leverkusen had in the previous round? Chelsea have a team full of winners, a team of experienced pros who know when to knock the ball around, know when to play it long, and know when to dig deep and shut up shop. The world wanted to know if Barcelona could be beaten. The answer was given to them by 10 warriors in white shirts.
And so the greatest prize in club football, the one that had been the primary aim when Abramovich's billions came rolling into West London was once again in sight. In the way stood Bayern Munich, a team who I said at the beginning of the season had a real shout of winning the competition. I was hoping that I was going to be proved wrong.
Like the Barcelona game, Chelsea set up defensively. Bayern have scored 77 goals in 34 Bundesliga games. At the fabulous Allianz Arena, they have blown the opposition away at times, putting seven past a helpless Basel yet only conceding a handful of goals. It would take a manager of Alex McLeish's stupidity to risk trying to outgun the Bavarian side. The offensive lineup of Mario Gomez, Franck Ribery and Arjen Robben is formidable, and oddly, suspensions from previous Champions League games only served to add to the firepower, with Thomas Muller taking advantage of the more defensively minded Luiz Gustavo's ban.
When facing up to such a good team, managers often have to adapt their tactics to stifle the more dangerous players. RDM opted for young Ryan Bertrand, a player who as an enviable European games to trophy ratio of 1:1. His job was to help Ashley Cole stop Robben causing havoc down the right flank. On the far side, the consistently suspect Jose Bosingwa was up against Franck Ribery, with Salomon Kalou positioned marginally further up the pitch to do a similar job.
Yet Bayern have many weapons. By dropping so deep, Chelsea allowed Bastian Schweinsteiger and Toni Kroos to abandon defensive duties and move forward into more dangerous positions. Muller was able to support Gomez, with full backs Phillip Lahm and the usually hopeless Diego Contento to provide the width when the stifled Robbery combination moved in field.
Whereas Barcelona have one way of playing (admittedly it is quite useful and usually gets the job done), Bayern are versatile. They can play it on the floor, throw crosses into the box, and have a few excellent ball strikers for long shots. Chelsea's defensive formation would, oddly, be tested more against the German side than the Spanish giants. Yet last night they seemed incapable of breaching Petr Cech's goal, as though there was a mental forcefield on the goal line. Gomez suffered an inconveniently timed bout of 'Ade Akinbiyi Syndrome' whereby everything he touched ended up in row Z. For a striker who I'm backing to run away with European Championship goal records this summer, his acute illness in front of goal was startling.
Chelsea gave their opposition too much respect. It was almost as though they were second guessing themselves from thinking that Bayern would be an easier prospect than Barcelona. When Chelsea piled men forward, they look threatening against Bayern's makeshift back line. Had it not been for the tenacity of Bastian Schweinsteiger, who I believe put in one of the great Champions League Final performances (bar the penalty miss of course), I think Chelsea could've had far more attacking joy than they thought they could ever achieve.
Of course, there are those who will criticise Chelsea's tactics. These are people who have won very little in their time.
Sometimes you have to acknowledge the opposition in front of you are superior. Individually, Bayern were the better team. Chelsea had four first team players missing, important players in important positions. Two centre halves (Ivanovic and Terry) and two centre midfielders (Ramires and Meireles), compared with Bayern's missing centre back (Badstuber), left back (Alaba) and defensive midfielder (Gustavo). Even with a full strength team, I can't imagine Chelsea would've lined up too differently.
No English fan would've been too outspoken about the negativity displayed against Spain where a 1-0 victory was hailed by the Press as a tactically astute performance. The Battle of the Somme was hardly a pretty spectacle yet the Allies still came out on top. There is nothing negative about trying to win.
Winning ugly is just that. Winning.
Chelsea defended stoutly. Cahill and Luiz were magnificent, with brief lapses of concentration vindicated by block after block. Cole proved again why he has consistently been the best left back in the world. Robben had very little joy down the righthand side and when the centre of defence was breached, Cole was there to make a perfectly timed interception. And the fact I found myself shouting at Bosingwa less often than normal tells its own story.
Cech in goal was superb. In the first half his save from Robben, tipping it onto the post showed great reflexes. I've never really had him down as a great spot-kick keeper but he guessed the right way for everyone of Bayern's penalties, both in normal and added time. When the game moves into a penalty shootout, it is up to the keeper to be a hero. Cech did just that. And believe it or not the Czech giant is not even 30 yet. He'll be a top keeper for years to come.
So after two and a half hours of emotional torture for many Chelsea fans, the final piece in the Abramovich puzzle was filled. It may not have been beautiful, we may not be as a footballing population fawning over great passing or licking the telly in an effort to admire technical ability, but football isn't just about passing. Barcelona don't have the exclusive rights to the brand of football. It is played in a number of different ways and a number of different styles. But the aim is always the same, put more goals past your opponents than they do to you. Regardless of how you achieve it.
Make no mistake, on any other night, the German side take their chances, score 14 and waltz off into the distance with trophy held aloft. The German unit will come again. With the addition of Swiss prodigy Xherdan Shaqiri in the summer, they may well have added the creative touch to dominate Europe. Make no mistake, life looks good on the pitch for the Germans, both at club and international level.
But this was Chelsea's year. And they made sure they took it. Well done RDM, well done the players, and well done the fans. Chelsea are European Champions. Say it out loud and you might just believe it.
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