Why The 2012 Champions League Final Is The Most Iconic Chelsea Game

Almost eight years ago, Chelsea crowned themselves kings of Europe by winning their first UEFA Champions League title. With the match being held in Munich, they were already at a disadvantage being the away team. Bayern Munich was at top form during this time and contained a squad of players worth almost double Chelsea's, Chelsea were the underdogs of this game. With even more pressure on Chelsea's head, they had never won the Champions League in club history as opposed to Bayern who had four titles on them.

As the match progressed, it was clear that Bayern Munich was the dominant team because of how much possession of the ball they controlled and the mass amount of shots that they had taken over Chelsea. The game continued to ride out scoreless until the 83rd minute where Chelsea had fallen 1-0 from a crossed in header by the Munich striker, Thomas Muller (who is still a phenomenal striker for Bayern today!). As the game was coming to a close, Chelsea received their first corner kick in the 88th minute. From this corner kick, Chelsea's striker, Didier Drogba rose up from the ground and managed to get a clean header into the near-post top corner of the goal to equalize in the dying moments of the game. Soon after this goal, full time had ended and the game was heading into extra time to determine a winner.

In extra time, Chelsea still looked like the losing team in this game, but they knew it was still anyone's game. With even more shots taken by Bayern, Chelsea goalkeeper Petr Cech was having one of the best games of his career with six clutch saves before heading into penalties. Once penalties ensued, it brought even more pressure to the game. Penalties had started poorly for Chelsea with Bayern goalkeeper, Manuel Neuer saving the first one. Once Bayern had made it to their fourth penalty, Cech came up big with a save to equalize the count. Following this penalty, Ashley Cole scores his for Chelsea and Schweinsteiger misses the target for Bayern giving Chelsea a big chance to wrap the game up. The last player to take the penalty for Chelsea was of course the man that scored the equalizer, Drogba. He took a quick run up and slotted it bottom-left corner and made history for Chelsea FC.

From all of the pressure built up throughout this game, it is clear that this was Chelsea's biggest game to date. I remember watching this game when I was just eleven years old ecstatic of what had just happened. This game is the very reason as to why Didier Drogba was always my favorite player growing up. With all signs pointing towards Bayern to win the game, Chelsea had overcome the giants in an emotional win in Germany.