Buzzin Football

Last night in the Nou Camp Stadium, Chelsea managed to suffocate Barcelona’s ‘beautiful football’ (as Guus Hiddink described it) by leaving Barca with no space in which to create chances in the fist leg of the UEFA hampions League in front of a capacity crowd that included Michel Platini.  Guus Hiddink’s well worked tactics continued to frustrate Barcelona and their ever-expectant fans for the whole game, as Chelsea held on for a great 0-0 draw.

The three-pronged attack of Thierry Henry, Samuel Eto’o and Lionel Messi were closely monitored, and each attack was dealy with in a most professional manner.

Special praise must go to Jose Boswinga who was given the daunting task to man-mark Lionel Messi.  John Terry and Alex stood strong and Petr Cech continued to regain his confidence with a commanding performance including several great blocks.

The game had spice and fiery tackles, and threatened to spill over in both halves; and at one point there appeared to be a competition between Dani Alves and Didier Drogba to see who could fall over and fake injury the most!

Chelsea were playing a more conservative game than normal, even replacing Frank Lampard with the more defensive former Barcelona midfielder, Juliano Belletti with 20 minutes to go.

Hiddink’s game plan appeared to be counter-attack with caution.  Cheslea only had one good chance which fell to Drogba at te end of the first-half.  A defensive mistake left Drogba one-on-one with the goalkeeper.  But Valdes managed to block two shots from the inform striker.

Chelsea managed to keep Barcelona within reach for the second leg but were unable to score a vital away goal.  The second leg is at Stamford Bridge next Wednesday; a game where both teams will need to score to avoid a penalty shoot-out.  Chelsea will still need to be disciplined but by pushing forward in the search for a goal, the three-prong attack of Barcelona, possibly the best attack in the world, will get more space and more chances to score, what would be a vital away goal.

The game is set up for another great encounter.  But I’m not sure that this result has left Chelsea in the driving seat.