Back From the Dead, And the European Dream Lives On

Few nights in the history of the knockout stages of the Champions League have we seen magnificent comebacks by teams who had lost the first leg by more than 2 goals.

Even fewer have those nights been witnessed in Stamford Bridge, and almost never before have such an occasion come at a time when Chelsea's season seemed to have been as gone, done and dusted as they are now. 

But such a night it was.

And such a night reminded us why the Champions League can sometimes bring out the best in teams even when faith has been lost on themselves.

A fast-growing and exciting Napoli, boasting one of the more feared Holy Trinity's in Europe in the form of the deadly Edinson Cavani-Marek Hamsik-Ezekiel Lavezzi combo, rolled into town with a comfortable 3-1 lead from the first leg.

They were facing a Chelsea side who have been a pale shadow of themselves a couple of years back, struggling domestically, managed by an interim caretaker manager and populated with an old guard whom everyone thinks ought to have been put out to pasture by now.

Conventional wisdom suggested a spirited 'go-down-fighting' performance at the Bridge a la Arsenal vs Milan, with Napoli edging through to the quarterfinals. 

Clearly Chelsea was not one to follow conventional wisdom.

I'm not going to ramble on with a detailed commentary on the game itself (there are loads of football sites out there where you can get that from), but suffice to say that the players, whose careers many had marked as supposedly 'over the hill', pulled us back from the dead and transformed into a maybe not-so-lean, very mean, Napoli-kicking machine. 

The irrepresible Drogba, Captain Marvel himself Terry and Chelsea's saviour for more than a decade Lampard powered Chelsea through in ways only they knew best (power header, glancing header from a corner kick and top-notch penalty kick, respectively) to pull the game into extra-time (Napoli's Gokhan Inler had pulled one back for the visitors in the 55th minute). 

When legs are tired, spirits are flagged and glucose levels in the body are running on empty, you sometimes need a little bit of pixie dust, magic, luck, whatever you want to call it ... to give you just the edge. Ivanovic has been the man to do that for Chelsea over the years in Europe and last night, he did it again with a powerful lash in after being beautifully set up by Drogba.

With that, Chelsea came through and are indeed through to the next round. Pure magic. A night to remember for all.

It's nights like this that stiffens the flagging faith in the Chelsea faithful. It's nights like this that brings back that glimmer of hope in a cloudy season. And it's nights like this that can sometimes be the catalyst for turning the corner and rallying the team into a late charge to salvage the season. 

Whether or not DiMatteo is the right man for the job, whether or not the older players should be shown the door, whether or not Jose returns ... these are all considerations for summer when the season is over. As I've said before time and again, you have to take what's in front of you and deal with it like a man. Now is what matters, not yesterday, not tomorrow. Chelsea's answer to their critics lie in forgetting all their woes, leaving the rebuilding and shake-up of the squad to after the season ends and just concentrating on standing up and being counted at every game, one at a time.

They did just that last night. They did just that with such gusto that one may be tempted to wonder whether the battling spirit of old may be slowly creeping back Happy days at the Bridge again, you wonder?

It's nights like this that makes you wanna put on Aerosmith's 'Dream On' and shout the chorus "dream on ... dream on ... dream on ... dream until your dreams turn BLUE"

I'll stop here before I start jinxing them. And end with just this question: Man City, are you watching?