It was a Champions League mission that should have been impossible for Chelsea. And yet this was one they thought they had done. They refused to fall when two goals for good thanks to Mason Mount and Antonio Rüdiger were severely denied a VAR cancellation after Marcos Alonso thought he had scored 3-0 in the 62nd minute.
Instead, Timo Werner made it 3-0. For so many reasons, he had to be the cult hero, and if traveling fans struggled to make sense of everything – completely lost right now – they weren’t the only ones. It was the biggest comeback in the history of the club.
To illustrate the scale of the challenge that Chelsea face in the future, only one club has ever overcome a two-goal deficit since its first home game in the Champions League. This was Manchester United in 2019 against a Paris Saint-Germain team led by Thomas Tuchel.
In one night that will live long in the memories of all present, Tuhel was brave and rewarded for his work, his team started brightly and is getting better and better. Reese James was huge, while Mount led a support team that never stopped working. Or believing.
The problem was that Real Madrid was not finished. They never are. If they have 13 European Cups, they seem to have almost as many lives in the race each season. They equalized when Luka Modric made a lavish pass outside the shoe for Rodrigo, who came in as a reserve for volleyball. Even then, Chelsea could pinch him after the 90s. Twice Christian Pulisic, who came in as a reserve, exploded loudly.
Real will create what turned out to be the decisive blow at the beginning of overtime. When Vinicius Junior set up a cross from the left, Karim Benzema melted away from Rüdiger and the Chelsea defender could only turn away in horror, slipping, powerless to prevent what was coming. Benzema buried his head.
Thibaut Courtois cannot stop Timo Werner from scoring Chelsea’s third goal of the evening. Photo: Chris Brunskill / Fantasista / Getty Images
Chelsea refused to leave quietly. The drama was relentless to the end, the passions swirling, the intensity was astounding. Tuhel received a yellow card for taking a protest in front of the referee too far, while Cesar Aspilicueta, an unused reserve, also received a yellow card.
Hakim Ziec, as a reserve, extended Thibaut Courtois to the near post, while Federico Valverde made an important challenge in another substitution, Jorgeninho. Real behaved.
There was a good chance when Kai Havertz nodded away from James’ cross, then, with goalkeeper Edward Mandy aiming for the last corner, Ziyech shot and Jorgeninho pushed aside when he needed to score.
The full-time whistle sparked an outburst of emotion. Real rejoiced, postponed, their maestro found a way again. Modric was phenomenal.
Chelsea was devastated. Rüdiger screamed in the night sky, as if he could not understand that the club’s defense of their title was over before he landed on the grass and was not the only one. It will take some time before the pain goes away, although Chelsea must somehow recover in time for Sunday’s FA Cup semi-final against Crystal Palace.
The support of the hosts expected something much smoother in the beginning. “No juegues con el rey” was the slogan of their giant typhus. The image shows the king throwing cards number 13 over the European Cup. Don’t play with him, okay?
Chelsea did not listen. Squeezing high in Tuhel’s surprising 4-3-1-2 system – Ruben Loftus-Cheek to the right of the midfield, Mount behind split strikers – they got the early goal they craved. Werner was the one who made a film he didn’t seem to know much about, and there was Mount who exploded to finish.
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Tuhel didn’t want to die wondering. It was an amazing job because Real could see the space behind Chelsea’s defense. Vinicius looked at them thirstily. He was often one-on-one with James and had a moment early when he tricked him into buying a free kick and a yellow card for his marker. Benzema struck the beam. Tuhel’s reasoning was clear. No risk, no reward, which James embodied, playing fearlessly despite his card, not to mention the power in duels.
Chelsea continued to insist in the second half. Havertz entered the danger zone and after Real cleared only half of the corner, James made a low shot to the side. Did he really repel Modric? Real did not dispute. But from the corner of Mount Rüdiger, he removed Modric and hit Courtois with his head.
He really moved. Benzema was denied a save by James, Mandy deflected a free kick by Tony Kroos and Valverde hit a little above him. Still, Chelsea were the ones who were most frustrated when Alonso took a second bite of his chance against Danny Carvajal and hit the far corner. The video assistant would have noticed that the ball first rose from Alonso’s thigh and touched his arm.
The next Benzema headed for the crossbar, then Werner appeared, intervened, and sent Casemiro, David Alaba, and Carvajal to the Santiago Bernabeu metro station before seeing his shot from Courtois’s glove and turning in the far corner. Havertz would almost make it 4-0 just for Courtois to avoid a header. The story of Chelsea’s bad luck shook.
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