All good things – or bad, depending on your tactical tastes – must come to an end and at Stamford Bridge Chelsea’s defensive tactic was duly halted by an Atletico Madrid team that was well-grooved, canny and vibrant in attack.
José Mourinho has now lost in a Champions League semi-final six times out of eight after the embarrassing 1-3 loss at Stamford Bridge.
It is a less telling statistic than it sounds: this is a very hard competition to win but there must still be concern at the enervated nature of this performance as a lopsided, strangely-configured team ran out of steel, defending their way to a meek 3-1 home defeat.
There will be celebrations not just among Atlético’s full-voiced support but also among the self-appointed pro-football lobby, those moved to raise a scented handkerchief to their nose at the spectacle of Chelsea’s extreme defensive stitching in recent matches.
Apart from that, the rush will begin to cut Mourinho down to size, to claim that the magic dust has gone, the tactics are obsolete, the motivational superpowers decisively depleted.
However, on the other hand, the Portuguese has done quite well to take Chelsea thus far, having inherited more than half of the squad.
They are not one of the top four playing squads in Europe and Mourinho’s tactics were the right ones to drive Chelsea to within 50 minutes of a Champions League final. A specialist in semi-final failure is a pretty good kind of specialist to be, not least when you are also a two-times winner.
Yet for all that Chelsea were genuinely poor, outplayed on their own ground by a more balanced and mobile team of great spirit and energy. Although, never let it be said that Mourinho bends with the wind and it was an extraordinary Chelsea team from the start, a selection that bordered on a debauchery of defence.
Every neutral football fan would question Mourinho’s tactical approach to Wednesday’s encounter, choosing the defensive approach when his team needed an outright victory to book a final date with his former club, Real Madrid.
Mourinho responded to accusations his team are too defensive by picking five defenders and playing David Luiz in midfield. From Ashley Cole on the left to César Azpilicueta on the right an iron curtain has fallen across Chelsea’s defence in the last week and here was another patch of territory annexed.
It was all the more bizarre given this was a match in which Chelsea were under pressure to use not just the shield but the sword. Twice in previous rounds they had been presented with a must-win second leg at Stamford Bridge and responded. On this occasion, Mourinho simply went with more of the same, more defence, more solidity. It never looked like enough.
At times in the first half the defensive right-winger Azpilicueta was Chelsea’s most advanced player. And really, you do have to wonder about all this in a match Chelsea had to win and which too often saw Branislav Ivanovic and Azpilicueta fumbling between them on the right wing, each waiting for the other to take the lead.
Mourinho was blessed by the return of Eden Hazard, the chief playmaker in Chelsea’s transitions from defence to attack, but the Belgian found himself isolated twice in the first half after beating his man.
