Chelsea reach the 2017 FA Cup Final. Spurs beaten but still honourable losers.
This was FA Cup football at its purest, most enjoyable and scintillating. Chelsea may have reached yet another FA Cup Final but this was football with a gold, silver and bronze sheen. The FA Cup of sweetness truly overflowed with the finest vintage wine and only the most hardened and cynical of football supporters could deny that this was a cracking, end to end game of football. And there were so many twists and turns of fate that by the end of this FA Cup semi Final between Chelsea and Spurs many of us were crying out for more of the same such was the game's shining lustre and quality.
Chelsea may have run out deserving 4-2 winners against a splendidly skilful Tottenham side but this was a game that swayed and titled from one end to the other without ever pausing for breath. At times you almost felt you were watching Brazil in their glorious 1970 World Cup pomp, Argentina at their dizzyingly hynoptic 1978 World Cup best and more recently Germany at the last World Cup in the Maracana of Brazil. Surely there can be no greater praise such was the lavish brilliance of this fizzing, whizzing, rip roaring, shimmering, sizzling FA Cup semi Final.
This was a thrilling, intoxicating and remarkable FA Cup semi Final and the Wembley Stadium arch has rarely seen such an important game graced by two such technically refined Premier League teams, two teams contesting football on two fronts and never flinching for a moment in their sense of destiny. We were so breathless by the end that the Spurs supporters who drifted away in their thousands at the end, must have felt that they were both robbed and ransacked by an unwelcome burglar.
And so it was that the FA Cup threw up one of the best FA Cup semi Finals of recent years. Here we had the richest of football aristocracy among us. Spurs were all dainty delicacy on the ball and Chelsea, for large parts of the game were quite possibly outplayed but still carved out some of the most precise and incisive football ever seen on a Wembley pitch.
It was rather like watching a landscape artist and sculptor at work. Both Chelsea and Spurs were artists of the most sophisticated kind. Chelsea approached the game in a state of mild turmoil after recent Premier League setbacks at home to Crystal Palace and at Manchester United last weekend. But you would never have thought for the moment that their composure had ever been disturbed because their performance against Spurs was cut from the silkiest cloth, made to measure and beautifully designed by a Chelsea manager Antonio Conte who looks as though his clothes were similarly well tailored.
Conte once again wore all black, dark cardigan, dark shirt, dark tie and all Italian swagger. For Chelsea this victory over their London neighbours was brushed, burnished and decorated with football's brightest colours. For long periods though Chelsea looked misshapen, sloppy and slovenly, their football and passing clearly affected by recent jolts to their system and never really finding their feet or any kind of real shape to their game.
But here was a game for the connoisseur, the purist, the footballing aficionado, the expert, the football supporter who studies the game as if it were some great literary work. Here was a game played on the highest of plateaus, a game of sumptuous passing from both sides, movement on and off the ball that was richly imaginative from first minute to the 90th minute and had a dash of Cup romance.
For those who were looking at omens it would have been easy to turn back the clock. Exactly 50 years ago Spurs, with the ever charismatic Jimmy Greaves up front, beat Chelsea in the 1967 FA Cup Final. It was hard to tell whether Chelsea were looking for revenge in today's FA Cup semi Final but here was a game that had much of the the 1960s art and artistry about it. Chelsea of course are desirable occupants of the Kings Road and we all know where we were back then.
Still revenge it was for Chelsea of sorts. When the tirelessly influential Willian gave Chelsea the lead from a stunning free kick and Harry Kane equalised with the deftest of headers from a free- kick, we had an FA Cup semi Final of magical properties and epic proportions. This was football from Mount Olympus, football garnished with football's tastiest ingredients and varnished with vigour, vim and verve. It is quite some time since an FA Cup semi Final had both gripped, captured your attention and made you glad that the game's heartbeat is quicker than ever and its soul still in good order.
Then Chelsea came good again just before half time. By now Pedro, Kante, Willian, Victor Moses were beginning to stitch their passes together with an almost telepathic understanding. The football Chelsea were playing showed the instinctive cohesion of a side managed by Jose Mourinho or even a Dave Sexton. Occasionally there were throwbacks to Didier Drogba, Frank Lampard, Claude Makelele, Arjen Robben, Charlie Cooke, Alan Hudson, Dave Webb and Peter Osgood. But then we opened our eyes and we were watching footballing fantasy of the 21st century kind. Chelsea were ahead from the penalty spot shortly before half time after a needless push on Victor Moses.
And yet Spurs were still performing with all the flair and impromptu originality of a Bill Nicholson push and run side. Their passes flowed and flickered across the Wembley pitch, fluttering like the pigeons in the Wembley sky, quick and sharp, accurate and articulate, a side of high culture and breathtaking breeding.
In Mousa Dembele, Kieran Trippier, Victor Wanyama and the hugely assured England defender Eric Dier, Spurs had players with educated feet, uncanny awareness of each other in possession and the ability to pass the ball to each other without even thinking about it. At times it was rather like watching the team of Danny Blanchflower, Cliff Jones and Jimmy Greaves in a kind of nostalgic kaleidoscope. Then you thought of Alan Gilzean, Ralph Coates, Steve Perryman, Martin Peters and Martin Chivers and you knew that today's Tottenham had found obvious role models.
When the supremely talented Delle Ali lashed home Spurs equaliser from quite the most heavenly through pass from the ever immaculate Christian Erikssen, Spurs looked destined to strengthen their hold on the game. Chelsea were beginning to look leg weary and ragged and Spurs tried to remember those glorious of glory, glory years. It was rather like looking back at an old photo album from the attic and pretending that Spurs could once again prove to be unbeatable and invincible.
But this was not to be Spurs day and for all their daisy chain passes in intricate order, Chelsea grew in stature and when Eden Hazard came on as an inspired substitution for Chelsea you somehow knew that a glittering chandelier had been switched on at Chelsea's high society party. Hazard is the most outrageously inventive player the world game has ever seen. He is yet to hit the heights of a Neymar but some of his dribbling skills are blessed with genius. He runs with the ball, runs at defenders with a frightening turn of pace and then scores goals that have the hallmark of quality.
Within minutes of Hazard's entry into the game he was on the score sheet. He danced around the Spurs penalty box, hovering and scheming with intent before blasting home Chelsea's fourth with a shot that flew past Lloris. Spurs keeper. Now a fascinating, fantastic, breathless and pulsating game of football had reached its spell binding conclusion. It was an afternoon that promised much and delivered handsomely. Spurs may have been downcast but they were far from broken and admirably spirited. Their football still had an air of nobility about it and there were times when it suggested much more than spirited resistance.
Slowly Chelsea's triumphant fans whooped, jumped and celebrated deep into the North London evening. Their evening had been complete, masses of blue scarved football supporters grinning joyfully from ear to ear and then you thought of Tottenham. Now Tottenham's season could potentially end on the highest of notes. You can sense a crescendo in Tottenham's season because the Premier League could be theirs for the taking. But then the drum missed a beat and suddenly the Tottenham choir began to sing in the wrong key. Suddenly Spurs had taken the wrong turning and Chelsea took full advantage of Spurs defensive weaknesses. And then finally Wembley saluted one of its greatest goals. Nemanja Matic settled himself on the edge of the penalty area and let fly with an unstoppable 30 yard shot that soared into the roof of Spurs net like a rocket. A goal worthy of winning any game.
When the final whistle finally went and Chelsea had reached the FA Cup Final, whole columns of blue and white Spurs supporters streamed along Wembley way. They looked like a defeated army but when Premier League rivalries are resumed and the gunsmoke drifts over both North and West London, Spurs and Chelsea will enter the final straight for the Premier League title with the heartiest of flourishes.
With five matches left of the Premier League season left it looks as if this Premier League title chase may yet play havoc with the nerves of both Chelsea and Spurs supporters. Sometimes football should come with a government health warning and if indeed Chelsea do win the FA Cup and the Premier League double they may have justifiable cause for delight. Spurs, of course can only hope that a horrible repetition of last season doesn't rear its ugly head. Football- what a wonderful game. It has to be the best.
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