Stamford Bridge has never been known for its ominous atmosphere, with chants of “is this a library?” was heard regularly from the far end on a domestic match day.
But Champions League nights should be different.
Much has been said, written, podcasted etc about the effects of the coronavirus pandemic on football worldwide, but in no competition has the absence of supporters been felt more than in the Champions League (at least in Europe).
The players line up in front of an empty stand | Fran Santiago / Getty Images
The knockout rounds have always flourished with fan-generated atmosphere, with the combination of night rises, packed, partisan stadiums, the huge Champions League anthem and the cacophony of noise unmatched to drag you to the edge of your seat when the stakes are high.
Chelsea’s tie against Porto during the last eight was deprived of most of these important ingredients, but with both legs playing in neutral, foreign territory in front of parts of empty seats. To hear ‘Die Meister, Die Besten …’ echo around an empty Estadio Ramon Sanchez Pizjuan, while the camera panned over the blank faces of both stands as they stared awkwardly at their own benches and the endless banks of red plastic beyond, were – frankly – not quite the same.
While well-balanced Paris Saint-Germain and Bayern Munich served a fanless classic, it meant that there was a clear favorite in Sevilla that the tie really needed a stadium full to the brim. It is impossible not to feel that the lack of them contributed to one of the most forgetful quarterfinals in recent memory.
Porto struggled to get anywhere near their heroics against Juventus in the previous round, and failed to put a glove on Chelsea until injury in the second leg; A man who had clearly drunk his Gazprom before the match was Mehdi Taremi, who illuminated a dormitory with a phenomenal bike kick in the 93rd minute.
Taremi crashes home his wonderful winner | Quality Sport Images / Getty Images
However, the injuries had already occurred a week earlier. Deprived of their fortress Estadio do Dragao – where Porto are unbeaten in the Champions League this season despite facing Man City and Juventus, and have not lost in the league since October – saw the Portuguese champions without confidence after their early attacks and Chelsea capitalized on two bad defensive errors to build an inaccessible two “away” lead without playing well at all.
While the other leg could have led to a tense affair under the light at Stamford Bridge, both sides lacked the drive needed to complete their respective tasks at hand; Chelsea needed a home crowd to get them over the line, while Porto traveling support would no doubt have provided fuel with the odds stacked against them.
In the end, the match was played just as you would expect a game to go if you remove it from almost anything that makes it an event – blocking the arena, the ball and the time of day. Of course, Chelsea and champion tactician Thomas Tuchel deserve credit because they had killed the tie as a contest six days earlier, but they plundered for the simple option of sitting on their lead rather than trying to push home their dominance and fall to a bad defeat if you take the game. isolated.
8 – @ChelseaFC has reached the UEFA Champions League semi-final for the eighth time, more than any other English side in the history of the competition. Accustomed. pic.twitter.com/kjpVJE8JmJ
– OptaJoe (@OptaJoe) April 13, 2021
Once again, Porto worked but could not literally create anything until Taremi took flight at death. They only decided to show battle after the full-time signal when Blue’s head coach Tuchel claimed that his counterpart Sergio Conceicao would strike, which inevitably caused veteran house ** Pepe to blow the lid.
When you looked at this game out of context, you could easily have been fooled into thinking that it was a final meeting in the group stage between an already qualified side and one that was destined for the Europa League that had secured third place. While it was partly due to Chelsea’s comfortable “away” victory, a match at this stage of the competition felt without excitement, excitement and atmosphere felt … wrong.
Moods flared after the whistle full time | Fran Santiago / Getty Images
It was never likely that it was a Champions League campaign as we know it this season, but this was a demonstration that the return of fans may not come soon enough for European football’s premier club competition.
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