After the game, a whirlwind of emotions came through me. Calming down and applying hindsight, I realized that it just wasn't meant to be for us tonight.
I'm sick of people saying we defended with 11 players on the night without actually watching the match.
Here are several points I would like to make to the idiots out there:
1. Barca are the best team in the world at possession football, you cannot outpass Barca, take the game against Utd for example last season, they were the best attacking team in England last season, but they were forced like we did over the two legs.
Those who say Chelsea just play to defend clearly haven't got a clue and just have a look at the live statistics instead of the match. Give credit to Barca, they forced us to play that way, even when they didn't have the ball, they pressured us tirelessly into giving away possession, I'm even suprised that even some Barca fans don't realize this.
2. Apart from the goal, Petr Cech did not have a save to make. Barca were ineffective for most of the match.
3. Yellow cards causing players to miss the final ruling is daft, I'm sure everyone agrees with me on this one. Yellow cards are very easy to collect, for the smallest offense you can get a cheap yellow card. I feel sorry Alves and Alex, he was probably the main threat from Barca as the other players were ineffective most of the match.
4. Football is game full of emotions, conceding a last gasp goal like that, and having had clear penalties turned down by the ref, of course as a player, emotions run high, and I'm sure when players calmed down afterwards they'd realize "I shouldn't have done that".
I understand Ballack's frustration(having gone thru so much in his career) and for Drogba, we all know what he's about, and I'm sure he'll regret it later.
As for the red card, I don't think Abidal deserved the red card for his coming together with Anelka but his first half-challenge on Drogba should've brought us a penalty, and the blatant handball by Pique, I can only assume the ref didn't see it, because that was a definite penalty.
That said, congratulations Barcelona. Now go on and win the damn thing.