Chelsea may be lucky to be Champions but their determination & discipline were unquestinable.

As a die hard FC Bayern Munchen fan, I travelled & watched the final at Allianz Arena in Munich. Witnessing the defeat in person has made it more difficult to digest as Bayern were simply in control of the match all the way to the penalty shootouts when all of a sudden they missed their 4th & 5th penalties & lost!

I must of course congratulate Chelsea for the courageous way they defended their way & rode their luck to the full unbelievable extend of it in both the semi finals & the final. First they eliminated Barcelona, arguably the best team in the world, and then they beat Bayern in Munich. In all three games Chelsea defended with 11 players. However, they also took their chances whilst both Barcelona & Bayern were profligate & wasted numerous opportunities including the decisive penalty misses by Messi for Barcelona & Robben for Bayern.

By the time Chelsea equalised in the 88th minute of the final, the possession statistics were Bayern 65% Chelsea 35% & the corner counts were Bayern 20 Chelsea 0!!

And then Arjen Robben missed his penalty in the extra time & the rest is history. Bayern now have the unwanted record of having lost 5 European Cup/Champions League finals (equal with Juventus & Benfica) & they have lost 5 of their last final appearances in the competition.

Whether the current crop of players can manage to reach the final again is questionable considering the huge negative psychological impact of having lost the 2010 & 2012 finals.