NEW JOURNAL AT WEMBLEY: CHELSEA 1 PORTSMOUTH 0
Saturday May 15, 2010
FA Cup Final
Chelsea 1 Portsmouth 0
HT (0-0)
Drogba 59
By JOHN EVANS at WEMBLEY
THE difference between the cup final sides could be summed up by two notable misses.
Salomon Kalou's spectacular failure to hit the net from three yards on 27 minutes failed to deny him a winner's medal and share of his club's first league and cup double.
Portsmouth's Kevin-Prince Boateng's woeful penalty miss 10 minutes into the second half summed up the expectations and failure of his side at the end of a season which sees them in administration, relegated and about to be broken up with all but inevitable departures of manager and players.
More to the point, his miss gave Chelsea back the initiative after his side's brighter start to the second half.
Didier Drogba not only won a free kick four minutes later but managed to curl his shot past the outstretched hand of David James for the only goal of the game.
After the match a delighted Chelsea boss, Carlo Ancelotti, said: "This team has the quality to win the Champions League without change."
Having failed in that quest this season he said: "We have to be happy with these trophies."
"We will start next season with the victory of the double. It will put more attention on us but this is normal. We are proud to have this attention.
"I've on my hands a very good squad."
Yet it could have been so different, as he admitted, before the "turning point" of the penalty miss.
"That was the key moment. If Portsmouth went 1-0 up it was more difficult for us," Ancelotti said.
Chelsea had hit the woodwork no fewer than five times in the first half, including Kalou's effort from a Ashley Cole cross from the left. The others came from John Terry, Frank Lampard and Drogba twice.
Despite such relentless pressure, Portsmouth valiantly defended their goal for the first 45 minutes of an enthralling, if one-sided, encounter in front of an 88,335-strong crowd.
Pompey themselves could have taken a first-half lead but Frederic Piquionne failed to turn in a cross-goal volley from Boateng, instead pushing it towards Petr Cech who brought off a sharp one-handed clearance.
Boateng's penalty followed a challenge by Chelsea substitute Juliano Belletti, who came on for the injured Michael Ballack. Belletti was adjudged to have brought down Aruna Didane after a neat move down the right. After Boateng's failure, pushing the ball tamely and hitting Cech's legs, the outcome of the Premiership's best side playing the worst seemed as assured as it had all along to the bookies.
It was not to be the day of the underdogs.
Portsmouth boss Avram Grant was defiant after the match, which he, too, thought could have seen them win but for the penalty miss.
He refused to be drawn on his own future after strong rumours of his departure to manager-less West Ham.
But he reserved his ire for the League, with Portsmouth, who had earned their place in Europe, only to be denied because of a failure to register in time.
"The club deserve to be in Europe," he said. "People will remember Portsmouth came to the final, everyone wants to see something a little bit different."
His team's performance in the cup this year was the stuff of English football as he knew it as a child, he said, adding; "The English league punished the players and they punished the club."
He was both sad and proud of his team's performance on the day. "We were one penalty away from winning,"
That might have been to overstate it. In any case, Chelsea also won a penalty late on and none other than Lampard missed that, failing even to hit the target.
Chelsea:
Petr Cech, Branislav Ivanovic, Ashley Cole, Frank Lampard, Didier Drogba, Michael Ballack, Florent Malouda, Salomon Kalou, John Terry, Alex, Nicolas Anelka.
Subs: Juliano Belletti, Joe Cole, Daniel Sturridge.
Portsmouth:
David James, Ricardo Rocha, Aaron Mokoena, Jamie O'Hara, Hayden Mullins, Papa Bouba Diop, Frederic Piquionne, Michael Brown, Steve Finnan, Kevin-Prince Boateng, Aruna Dindane.
Subs: John Utaka, Nwankwo Kanu, Nadir Belhadj.
Yellow cards: Rocha, O'Hara, Boateng.