Chelsea won the Champions League in the 2011/12 season under the management of
Roberto di Matteo – Di Matteo took over the club just before the second leg of the
last of sixteen against Napoli, overturning a 3-1
deficit to beat the Italian team 5-4 on aggregate. He
then steered Chelsea to wins over Benfica and Barcelona, before sealing the trophy on
penalties after a 1-1 draw with Bayern Munich in a game played at Bayern’s own ground, the Allianz Arena.
Chelsea lined up in the 4-2-3-1, with John Obi Mikel and Frank Lampard as the midfield
double pivot, with Juan Mata just ahead of them, flanked by Salomon Kalou and Ryan
Bertrand. Didier Drogba was Chelsea’s lone striker.
In defence, Chelsea had Jose Bosingwa, one of only two players in the 36 of both squads
to have won the Champions League before, along
with Chelsea sub Paulo Ferreira – both won with Porto in 2004. It’s also worth noting
that eight of the Chelsea squad had been in the
2008 squad, who lost the Champions League final to Manchester United, including four
players who started both games: Petr Cech, Ashley Cole, Lampard and Drogba. Di Matteo
thus had a lot of experience available to him.
Chelsea had to defend a lot in the match – according to the UEFA post-match report,
Baynern had 35 shots to Chelsea’s nine, and 54% of the possession. Chelsea went into
the game knowing they’d be under the cosh, and
the brilliant, unexpected deployment of Bertrand on the left flank was a doubling-up
to restrict both the attacking midfielder Thomas Muller, who often drifted to the right, and Arjen Robben.
Chelsea largely fell back into a 4-4-1-1 to defend, leaving Juan Mata high and just behind
Drogba to try and act as a conduit for counter-attacking moves.
Mikel had to cover a lot of ground, as Bayern’s rotating midfield of Schweinsteiger, Kroos,
and the more advanced Muller, as we looked at in a recent video, caused problems by not
sticking to their designated positions but, rather, pushing up and dropping back as space
allowed – as Lampard had a tendency to push higher than Mikel too, as a natural goal threat,
the Nigerian had a lot of work to do. Juan Mata struggled to mark one of Schweinsteiger
or Kroos or, rather, when he marked one the other attacked. Bayern thus dominated
the midfield area by tying up Chelsea’s deeper
outlet, Mata, and exploiting the space between Lampard and Mikel.
But, Chelsea’s superb defence, marshalled by Gary Cahill and with Jose Boswinga putting
in a heroic shift with far less cover on his side of the pitch that left-back Cole had, were able to
repel Bayern’s efforts for most the game. On seven of Bayern’s 35 shots were on target,
showing how well Chelsea blocked and closed down.
As the game headed into extra time, Jupp Heynckes withdrew Muller for a centre-back,
while Di Matteo brought on Fernando Torres for Kalou – this meant Bayern were sitting
deeper, with Kroos now a nominal attacking midfielder but lacking Muller’s movement
and penetration, while Chelsea posed more threat.
Torres tried to cut inwards when possible, but he and Drogba, who swapped over often
in extra time, still had to defend the right-hand
side in front of Boswinga. Nonetheless, Chelsea held on until the shoot-out,
which they won after Cech saved Schweinsteiger’s penalty and Drogba converted
his. Tenacious defence, the intelligent use of
Bertrand, and Heynckes’ error in withdrawing the best Bayern player on the night all
contributed to Chelsea’s excellent, and only, Champions League win.