A predictable Cup Final?
Chelsea 1 Manchester United 0 atfer extra time ?
Absolutely !
With Mourinho, it's defend and wait and fight and wait and fight and keep fighting and keep waiting – and then nick a goal.
If you didn't know where Chelsea were coming from, Joe Cole's mean two-footed "tackle" on Wes Brown told you after 10 minutes of a dreary first half in which both teams played as if they knew the first goal would win the FA Cup.
Second half, the game improved a bit but when two teams from the same league play in a final its always going to be tense if they are as well-matched as Manchester United and Chelsea. And we knew that United had peaked two weeks ago and had not played well in their last two games.
Chelsea defended for 87 minutes, breaking out occasionally, then attacked in numbers from 87 to 90 minutes.
They took a risk but only for three minutes.
Their game is safety football, very physical, very controlled and pragmatic safety football.
After 90 minutes, it was clear that Cristiano Ronaldo could not do anything in the last half-hour. He still had energy and skill and bottle but he could not now win the game for United.
Extra time opened up the game but Rooney had been playing Chelsea on his own and that was very frustrating for him. They caught him offside, and Petr Cech made saves from him and Giggs, measuring his interventions very well and making no mistakes
Ronaldo and Rooney didn't combine because Ronaldo always plays for himself in the biggest games . When he did give Rooney a little pass out wide, Roo's low cross was perfect but Giggs muffed the chance from three yards and Cech grabbed the ball and Giggs's knee knocked him just over the line. A foul, not a goal.
In 115, a foul by Alan Smith on Mikel started the move for the goal.
Halfway line, John Terry short to Wayne Bridge, diagonal forward to Kalou, back to Mikel, forward to Drogba moving backwards and deeper, his swift pass to Lampard catching Ferdinand in no-man's land as Drogba arrowed onto the return and lifted it past the advancing Edwin van Der Sar.
1-0 to Chelsea, game over.
For the whole game, the whole 115 minutes, United had five defenders at the back blocking the zone between the penalty spot and the D, and Heinze at left back was the right call, since his size was, on balance, more important that Evra's pace. But one moment of ball-watching by the United defence allowed Drogba to win the game.
Why was the game so dull ? Because both teams played 4-3-3 and neither had wingers who could combine effectively with their striker.
When Sir Alex brought on two subs in 112 minutes he was taking a huge risk because the arrival of Solskjaer for Giggs, and O'Shea for Carrick, was always likely to leave holes in the middle of the park – and that was exactly what happened.
Within two minutes, Kalou broke on the right and almost scored.
Two minutes after that, it was Bridge-Kalou-Mikel-Drogba-Lampard-Drogba: goal !
SIR ALEX has been trying to reshape his attack to get more out of Rooney for at least two years.
He sold van Nistelrooy to Real Madrid and tried many variations with Saha, with Smith, with Rooney in the left, with Larsson on loan. And all of that worked pretty well and they won 28 Premiership games and the title.
But the No. 1 problem remains : Rooney is a Bergkamp, a Dalglish, a Zola.
He is a half-striker who needs to be playing with an Ian Wright, a Berbatov or a Klose. United should not sign Michael Owen because he isn't skilful enough to play with Rooney and Ronaldo.
Rooney was playing in a 4-3-3 with Giggs and Ronaldo, two wingers who are often dribbling in towards him, so it's very awkward. He needs players making runs for him, not at him.
Manchester United should be playing 4-4-1-1 with a quality striker and one winger and a raiding full back on the other flank.
We saw Rooney preposterously out-muscling and out-pacing Essien but he was struggling at other times because the configuration of the team did not suit him. Even so, compared to Giggs and Ronaldo, he was a one-man army. He was playing Chelsea on his own. And that's why he lost 1-0.
Football is a collaborative art, like music, and poor Rooney had nobody to play with. If Smith had played instead of Fletcher, Rooney would have had the ball in more productive areas and would have been able to find Ronaldo or Giggs with a killer pass.
The new champions did not collaborate well enough to open Chelsea up. But Chelsea, as we expected, fought and waited and fought and waited and then collaborated beautifully for 12 seconds, and that's all it took to give Drogba his 33rd goal of the season
Rooney is 21 and will play in other FA Cup Finals. He lost his first on penalties and he lost his second in extra time. Maybe it will be third time lucky for the boy.
Before the game I was thinking that 90% of big events are disappointing. I've attended scores of big events, including many finals, and that's been my experience. I always reckon that the anticipation is more fun than the event, which rarely lives up to the hype. When it does, when an event is thrilling, we love it and treasure it and talk about it for years.
But this was : crap game, great goal by Drogba, very pleased for Makelele – next !
Apart from the goal the best bit for me was seeing the ten Red Arrows zoom low over our back garden at five to three leaving red,white and blue smoke trails. We live near Wembley and Jan's shout of "Quick, Myles!" got me to the back door just in time. If it had been a great game I would have wished I'd been there.
IN ATHENS, Liverpool will be as pragmatic as Chelsea were today.
Wednesday night will be Liverpool's workmanlike keep-ball against AC Milan's classy keep-ball.
Liverpool's problem is that Kaka will score one goal, so they have to score two.