Barca fall to Blues power

John Terry versus Ronaldinho. And the winner was 8212; John Terry, the East End boy with West End dreams. If Chelsea go on for another mill...

John Terry versus Ronaldinho. And the winner was 8212; John Terry, the East End boy with West End dreams. If Chelsea go on for another millennium, no player will embody the club8217;s ambitions quite like the homegrown warrior who scored their decisive goal on a night of unrelenting drama at Stamford Bridge.

They paraded the Carling Cup before the kick-off and played 8216;Blue is the Colour8217; over the public address: quaint reminders of the world Chelsea left behind last night. While plastic bottles and coins rained down on Jose Mourinho at the end, Terry led his club out -of its raffish, under-achieving past into the Champions League quarters and another adventure.

Even in games as tense, frenetic and topsy-turvy as this, individual genius still has the capacity to separate the good from the even better. Thankfully, this is one of the immutable laws of football, and long may it be so. But talent comes in all sorts of packages, and it was Terry who had the concluding word in this seething passion play.

No script writer could have concocted a better basis for a story. The top team in Europe against the best side in Spain. Home advantage to Chelsea, a one-goal lead for Barca. Probably the best front five in Europe against the best rear. Catalan against Cockney. The Byzantine politics of the Nou Camp against the crushing wealth of Roman Abramovich. Mourinho, the hot dog, against Rijkaard, the cool cat.

Finally, gloriously, the players took over, and silenced the bangings and crashings off stage. As if to confirm the verbal ceasefire, Mourinho waited for Rijkaard to come up the tunnel before the game commenced and shook his hand. Chelsea talk the talk, but last night they also walked the walk, flinging back in Rijkaard8217;s face his suggestion that the Blues are robotic points-accumulators.

Imagine the peaks of Chelsea8217;s joy when three rapid counter-thrusts brought them three goals in 11 minutes. Imagine the deflation when Ronaldinho retaliated twice before half time: once from a penalty following Ferreira8217;s handball and again with a sumptuous stationary chip that must have been conceived 20 yards from the pin on a golf course. Feet still, head over the ball, short backlift and in. Five goals in 38 minutes.

A purist, with his coaching manuals, would question the validity, the sanity, of an astonishing, turbulent first-half. Five goals in less than 40 minutes is the stuff of Hackney Marshes. But what did the neutral care? 8216;8216;Chelsea play to get a result. We play to entertain our season ticket holders,8217;8217; Rijkaard had said before the game. Those words returned like a head-severing boomerang as Eidur Gudjohnsen, Frank Lampard and Damien Duff found the soft heart of the Barcelona defence.

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Needless to say Ronaldinho has succeeded his countrymen Ronaldo and Rivaldo, as well as France8217;s Zinedine Zidane, as the world8217;s most most creative and potent footballer. In Abramovich8217;s inner sanctum, Peter Kenyon, his chief executive, must have squirmed a little when Ronaldinho8217;s exquisite dink went in. Kenyon is accused by some at Old Trafford of not pressing home his negotiating advantage when Ronaldinho was close to signing for Manchester United.

But Chelsea have invaluable qualities of their own, exemplified by Lampard and Terry, whose 76th-minute headed goal from a corner was a classic act of tenacity and defiance from their captain 8212; and also his 24th goal for the club.

Before this contest swung into pulsating life, it was obligatory to remind oneself that the Premiership title plus the Carling Cup would amount to a successful campaign for Mourinho8217;s men, regardless of last night8217;s result. Yet there was always the glint of something grander, more theatrical: a comeback victory over the team of Ronaldinho, Deco, Xavi and Eto8217;o.

The Daily Telegraph