Ends and Means

A magnificent extra time equaliser from Didier Drogba, who has developed into a truly world class striker, earned Chelsea an improbable draw in a bad tempered encounter with Barcelona at the Camp Nou that, sadly, will be remembered for diving, dissembling, cheating and posturing rather than the brilliance of Deco’s opener, Ronaldinho’s fizzing cross for Eidur Gudjohnsen’s glorious finish, or Drogba’s last gasp masterpiece.

Regrettably, Chelsea appear hell bent on demonstrating - week in, week out - that all the money in the world can’t buy you true class or real honesty. They seem to be in the process of reducing football to its lowest common denominator, the turgid accumulation of results regardless of a proper respect for integrity and fair play, and for a club with their unrivalled resources it is tragedy.

Earnest pre-match pleas for protection from the Spanish side’s deceitful approach to the game were focused upon preposterous accusations that Barcelona had taught Gudjohnsen to dive, yet in the game that followed Drogba dived, Essien dived, Robben dived, Cole dived and Lampard dived – ample indication that this particular form of corruption was not confined to the home side.

Neither were the fouls. It was, in truth, a veritable foul fiesta, full of sly digs and trips and littered with a pack of yellow cards distributed by a referee so inadequate he seemed at times to be the Italian equivalent of Mavis Riley.

And from the moment Chelsea emerged, provocatively clad in all white - the colours of Barcelona’s most bitter rivals – all the way through to Mourinho’s final melodramatic flourish, the entire spectacle was, save for three of the goals, light years from the beautiful game.