I have to say that I have never been a fan of the European Super Cup always thinking of it as a one sided competition which always favoured the club that had won the Champions League, rather than the one that had won the Europa League.
After all wasn’t the Europa League for the sides that were not good enough to play in the Champions League? Well putting all that aside, and not being the biggest Chelsea fan on the planet I decided last night that in between trying to follow on the radio, and what was happening on the last day of the transfer market that I would wander in and out of the kitchen to watch the game in Monaco on the television, and within five minutes I was hooked.
I said to myself “there it is look you can see it” what of course I was referring to was the difference to the way the game is played here in Spain to how it is played in the Premiership in England. Chelsea looked to me slow and lethargic while Atletico were controlling the game with short neat passes.
Every time Los Colchoneros went forward you expected them to score, with the movement off the ball just brilliant.
Not only did they cut through the Chelsea defence, and a David Luiz who probably wished he had stayed in bed but they made the Blues look like a very ordinary side, and don’t forget we are not talking about Real Madrid or Barcelona here but the club that finished in 5th spot 44 points behind the champions Real Madrid.
Ashley Cole tweeted after the match: “Well that was a lesson, absolute joke, no fight, desire, passion and a big reality check!!! Sorry CFC fans.”
It has to be said that the match was all about the passion of one man Columbian striker Radamel Falcao who was in top form for the match having put three past La Liga rivals Athletic Bilbao on Monday night.
Atletico’s first goal arrived after just six minutes when Falcao was sent clear of the labouring Blues defence by Koke’s through ball.
Yet even though Luiz read Falcao’s intentions to chip the advancing Petr Cech, his attempts at a goal-line clearance were still futile.
Worse was soon to follow as Luiz made a complete mess of trying to catch Falcao offside and succeeded in giving the hotshot the yard of space he needed to curl a great left-footer beyond Cech.
Falcao hit the woodwork again with a close-range header before completing a superb first-half hat-trick when he ghosted past Ramires to shoot low into the far corner.
A fourth arrived on 60 minutes when Chelsea failed to deal with a free-kick and Miranda scored.
Gary Cahill managed to pull a goal back late on in the match but buy then the Blues were a broken team humiliated by the star striker Falcao who could so easily have followed Andre Villas-Boas from Porto to the Bridge last summer, but Chelsea refused to meet the £35million asking price and stood by as he was snapped up by Atletico.
And how foolish does that decision now look after spending £83m this summer alone and still not replacing Didier Drogba up front?
Boss Di Matteo admitted: “We were never in the game, but if you give Falcao that sort of space he is always dangerous.”
I was joking when I tweeted at half time Roman Abramovich fresh off his court case win over fellow Russian tycoon Boris Berezovsky went into Athletico Madrid’s dressing room at half-time with a sack full of money and a blue football jersey that he threw to Falcao saying: “Put this on and when you come out you are playing for us now.”
All joking aside it was a great game to watch, and a fantastic advert for Spanish football, and the beautiful game.
