There was too much history between José Mourinho and his old club for the last 16 tie to be settled in the first leg. Chelsea, often on the attack, would have merited a draw on a night where they endured disadvantages such as the loss of their goalkeeper Petr Cech to a freak knee injury. To the pleasure of all onlookers, strategy did not check the flow of entertainment. The opening supplied the momentum for the whole evening.
In the unlikely event that Mourinho needed to offer proof of his impact, an Internazionale side that has previously looked as if it belonged in a tier below the Premier League club moved ahead after three minutes. With Ashley Cole and Yuri Zhirkov both injured, Carlo Ancelotti had brooded over the candidates for Chelsea’s vacancy at left-back and opted for the winger Florent Malouda.
Perhaps everyone had been too preoccupied with the issue because Inter broke through on the other flank. The visitors seemed utterly unprepared as Diego Milito cut inside, went across John Terry and scored with a low shot that beat Cech too easily at the near post. A sense of self-disgust over such a lapse seemed to galvanise Chelsea for a while.
The attacks were sustained for much of the opening half hour and no one could claim that Inter had cunningly contained the danger. A crossbar had to attend to that duty when it deflected a 30-yard free-kick from Didier Drogba after 14 minutes. All the same, many in Chelsea’s ranks would know how signs of encouragement can prove false when a resilient Mourinho line-up is around.
The Portuguese seemed to have the ideas and the means to trouble Chelsea. Terry looked particularly troubled by the striker Milito. In addition, Inter have more verve this season after reinvesting the funds raised by the sale of Zlatan Ibrahimovic to Barcelona. It allowed for the introduction, to take one example, of Wesley Sneijder’s stylishness in midfield as he regained his old form at San Siro.
Inter’s advantage ought to have been doubled in the 34th minute. Walter Samuel swept a fine pass to the left and Sneijder’s low ball went towards the far post where Samuel Eto’o missed his kick embarrassingly before Terry cleared. The home side were not so constantly masterful and Chelsea could have had an invitation to level the score at the end of the first half.
The referee Manuel Mejuto González was indifferent to the appeals when it seemed that Samuel had felled Salomon Kalou inside the penalty area. Chelsea hardly required additional motivation but the incident intensified the emotions. Given the identity of the Inter manager, drama and melodrama were to be anticipated.
Mourinho is never short of a grievance and his rare imagination excels at fashioning them. Ahead of the match, Mourinho had decried Ancelotti as an establishment figure, so burnishing his self-conferred reputation as a radical. The Portuguese’s revolutionary purpose is hard to identify. You could easily mistake him for a person who craves vast wealth and attention. Picturing himself as an outsider is a self-motivational technique. He may be oblivious to the fact that he presently works for one of the grand institutions of the sport, the sole Italian club to be ever present in Serie A.
Still, it cannot be too hard to be so embedded in the establishment when a game is running according to plan, as this one was with the lead intact at half-time. For all Chelsea’s conviction, there was a suspicion that Mourinho knew how to upset Ancelotti’s defence. The Inter manager had, to a large extent, built its creator in his London days and would have forgotten nothing about his handiwork.
Not even Mourinho could have purported to have dictated the events that filled the opening phase of the second half. In the 51st minute Chelsea equalised when Mikel John Obi set Branislav Ivanovic running and his low ball was taken by Kalou and curled into the net, with the goalkeeper Júlio César seaming a little unlucky.
Inter had regained the lead within four minutes. Sneijder delivered from the lead and although Esteban Cambiasso’s first shot was blocked by Ivanovic the ball broke back to the midfielder, who finished at the second attempt.
Shortly afterwards Cech had to be replaced when he seemed to hurt his knee while taking a cross unchallenged; Henrique Hilário came on in his place. Whatever is said about the sophistication of Mourinho and Ancelotti, this was not always a night in which a masterplan was being unfurled.
The players had notions of their own and Lampard was on the verge of a goal after build-up by Drogba and Nicolas Anelka, but his drive was saved by César. This taxing match had stimulated Chelsea and paved the way for an engrossing return.
Champions LeagueInternazionaleChelseaKevin McCarraguardian.co.uk