FA Cup final 2009: Everton dared to dream of beating Chelsea

30 May 2009 21:27
They dreamed that there was still a point to the world's oldest cup competition. Then Didier Drogba appeared like the dark lord in the middle of Everton's mortal defence and put an end to such fanciful nonsense. [LNB]When Louis Saha had scored the fastest goal in FA Cup history after just 25 seconds it was like the hope diamond. [LNB] Related ArticlesChelsea 2 Everton 1: Match reportFA Cup Final 2009: RatingsLampard: FA Cup perfect parting gift for HiddinkHiddink: Wembley win highlight of my stayMoyes could coach ChelseaTerry denies Makelele claimsThe Everton fans surged up. All the way to Wembley they had sung their songs in vocal defiance of Chelsea's pitifully muted support. But now they really believed. They believed it was possible to beat a richer and better team. [LNB]The Everton players ran around like wild men. When has Saha ever worked this hard. Steven Pienaar was heroic and Marouane Fellaini was giving Chelsea no end of bother. [LNB]Then little by little, Everton started to come apart at the seam. It was the right hand seam of the team and it was starting to fray. [LNB]You wouldn't wish it on anyone but Tony Hibbert, the Everton right back, was freezing in the sunshine. Slow to see the problem Phil Neville was not covering far enough across from his central position and Leon Osman was not working hard enough to get back. It proved Everton's downfall. [LNB]Once again Chelsea found room down their left and Florent Malouda, the game's outstanding player, curled in a cross that Drogba headed in. That was it. Everton's manager David Moyes tried to plug the gap at half-time. He pulled Hibbert off, told Osman to sit deeper and moved Neville further across, filling in for his captain with Fellaini. [LNB]Futile. It was like building the Thames barrier out of Lego. Even the switch contributed, in a mocking way, to Chelsea's winning goal. When Frank Lampard turned on the edge of the box Neville would have been there in the first half. [LNB]But having to scramble across from his wider position, he was wrong footed and Lampard does what he does best. Shoot. The sight of Roman Abramovich smiling like the white witch will have done little to soften the misery of the Everton fans as Chelsea crushed their team and powered on to deserved victory. [LNB]But at what cost to football. There was a posse of Everton fans heading towards the stadium before the start wearing blue T-shirts with the script: "Rage like lions after slumber, in unvanquishable number, shake your chains to earth like dew, which in sleep had fallen on you, ye are many, they are few." [LNB]It's not often you walk down Wembley Way and get an eyeful of Percy Bysshe Shelley, but you could see where the northern lads were coming from. There was hardly a Chelsea fan in sight in the hours leading up to the kick-off. [LNB]They were probably all still in the boozers off the King's Road. The Chelsea fans were the few. There seemed a feeling of "just another cup final" coming out of West London. [LNB]The fans just about turned up in time for kick-off, sending a huge blue "Chelsea FC Thank You Guus" rippling across their outstretched hands, but they didn't have a lot to say for themselves. [LNB]When the London Gospel Community Choir, decked out in the type of white suits that Liverpool players used to wear to Cup finals, gave a thrilling rendition of Abide with me it almost sounded like a personal plea from Abramovich. [LNB]Unfortunately a lot of neutrals, who used to love the strollers from Stamford Bridge in the days of Charlie Cooke and Peter Osgood, can't abide Chelsea any more. [LNB]They can't abide the fact that the FA Cup has been turned into the personal property of the big four. Once the glory of English football, the FA Cup is now a second rate, four team play-off that lags f behind the Champions League. [LNB]OK, so occasionally miracles do happen. Last year, Portsmouth beat Cardiff City in the final. But that was a freak of nature – 17 of the previous 19 Cup finals have been won by Chelsea, Manchester United, Arsenal or Liverpool. Predictability kills nostalgia. [LNB]Who can really, truly remember much about those past 19 finals. Those who were kids back in the Seventies still smile at memories of the late Ian Porterfield scoring for Sunderland or Bobby Stokes for Southampton – but we can't remember much of recent FA Cups. [LNB]If Saha's goal had proved the winner, if apples were oranges we might still have a smidgeon of faith. But a lot of us are now atheists as far as the FA Cup is concerned. [LNB]Is there an answer to the deadening domination of the big four? Is it worth considering excluding the Champions League qualifiers from that season's FA Cup? Probably not. But let's not forget it was Everton and their fans who made this day. [LNB]Chelsea won the match, but the extremes of joy and sadness, hope and despair, were all wearing an Everton shirt – losers yet unvanquishable. [LNB] 

Source: Telegraph