FC Basel 1-2 Chelsea: It's Now Chelsea's To Lose!

Zenit St Petersburg, Man Utd, Bayern Munich and Tottenham (after a penalty shoot-out), all illustrious names in European football, have succumbed to Basel in the St Jakob-Park in recent months and the expectant capacity crowd – lively, noisey and vociferious – were hoping Basel could add Chelsea to that list as they appeared in their first ever European semi-final.

Goals from Moses and a late, very late karma goal from a David Luiz free-kick deep into stoppage time – 4 minutes shown, 4 minutes played – gave Chelsea a deserved advantage to take back to The Bridge next Thursday, for a game that should turn out to be a thriller.

In truth though, Chelsea should have been out of sight.

The Blues created a whole host of chances but for a mixture of a Torres shot that cannoned off the woodwork, good saves by Basel’s Sommer and woeful, wasteful finishing, the 2^nd leg should be billed as a mere formality.

Chelsea didn’t have it all their own way especially in the second-half as Basel made changes which caused the game to open up.

Cech had to be on his toes on a couple of occasions to deny the marauding Salah, before his was withdrawn.

Basel also hit the woodwork with a Stocker low shot at the start of the 2^nd half, which wasn’t the start Chelsea were looking for and despite counter-attacking efforts it was plain to see that Basel were slowly getting back into the game then Basel’s pressure paid off when they were awarded a penalty three minutes from time for an innocuous challenge by Azpilicueta on Stocker.

The award of the penalty caused Fatty some anguish.

He said, “For us it wasn’t a penalty. To give a penalty it had to be very clear.

“We had this feeling that we didn’t deserve to concede this goal so it was extra motivation. We had to work hard in the end. We had chances in counter-attack when we could have scored the second goal.

“The penalty was a surprise for everyone but the second goal at the end was good enough.”

Up stepped Schar who smashed the ball straight down the middle of the goal to make the score 1-1.

Immediately after the resumption Chelsea went on the attack and still managed to create three or four half decent chances, the best one from ‘Captain, Leader, Legend, One England Captain’ JT who saw his close range header hit the outstretched arm of Sommer.

That was… until ….. David Luiz stepped up and the rest as they say is HISTORY!!

FC Basel: Sommer, P Degen, Schar, Dragovic, Park Joo Ho, Elneny (Zoua 65), F Frei, Serey Die (Diaz 61), Salah (D Degen 78) Streller (c), Stocker

Goal: Schar 87 pen

Booked: Dragovic 70, D Degen 80, Schar 89

Chelsea: Cech, Azpilicueta, Ivanovic, Terry (c), Cole, Lampard (Oscar 79), Luiz, Ramires, Hazard (Mata 70), Moses, Torres.

Goals: Moses 12, Luiz 90

Booked: Cole 68, Luiz 83, Azpilicueta 87

NEXT UP: Swansea City (H), Sunday 28^th April 2013, k.o. 3pm

COMING UP: FA Youth Cup Final 1^st leg v Norwich City (A), Monday 29^th April 2013, k.o. 7.45pm

COME ON CHELSEA

TWITTER: @WVOMChelsea