Well then, last night was fantastic, wasn’t it? As for most of you in the United Kingdom, I’m sure you either ignored the game’s existence due to it’s late kick-off time, recorded it, or attempted to watch it but fell asleep early on. To the small percentage of you who stayed up late and watched Chelsea play Barcelona early on in your Wednesday morning: nice work. It was quite enjoyable to see so many of you guys complain about kick-off times throughout Chelsea’s tour of America, because usually I’m the one complaining. Your lovely Saturday ‘lunchtime’ Premier League kick-offs are usually between seven and eight in the morning where I live, and I force myself to wake up for every single one of them. I feel for my fellow Chelsea supporters who live west of me, because a 7 am kick-off for me is a 4 am kick-off for those residing in California.
Now that that’s out of the way, let’s get onto my day yesterday. I left my house in northern New Jersey at around 12:30 pm, and let’s just say that FedEx Field isn’t exactly around the corner from where I live.
So after watching Chelsea embarrassingly lose to the New York Red Bulls reserve team a few days earlier, I hopped into the car hoping that the long travel would be worth it.
Let’s fast forward through the hours of agony and traffic, though. I made it to the pub in Arlington, Virginia where Chelsea In America were enjoying their pre-match party. As an eighteen-year-old though, I couldn’t do much more than walk in and pick up my tickets. So off we (my step-father and I) drove to FedEx Field in Washington D.C. for the match.
Here is what the stadium looked like as I walked up to it, it was massive. FedEx Field is an NFL stadium that seats about 90,000 after all…
Donning my retro 1970 FA Cup winners shirt with Osgood’s number nine on the back, I entered our section and walked down to my seat. Right behind the goal that Chelsea would be defending in the first half of the match was where I was seated. Well, more like where I stood – there wasn’t much sitting going on in our end. Even better, this was the Chelsea in America singing and standing section. Loads of Blues supporters began pouring in as kick-off approached, along with Neil ‘Spy’ Barnett, who was just a few seats to my left. Many of the guys around me were frustrated at the fact that they weren’t permitted to drape their respective flags over the edge of the section. Even worse, there were quite a few Barca fans around us. That didn’t stop us from serenading our beloved Blues, though. Here’s a Vine that I recorded upon my arrival.
The Chelsea starting eleven last night was almost our strongest. Kurt Zouma took the place of John Terry and work permit-less teenager Kenedy started on the right wing.
The first half was loads of fun in our section. The rest of the Chelsea In America members and I enjoyed going through all of the classic Chelsea songs as we watched the powerful line-up that Jose Mourinho put out take on Barcelona. One of my favourite little chants of the night that was exclusive to playing against Barca was ‘Where were you when Torres scored?’. That was hilarious, along with a few jeers towards Luis Suarez which I’d rather not repeat! The Barcelona fans, who I must say outnumbered us, had nothing to sing for themselves except the occasional chant of ‘Barca, Barca, Barca’, to which we responded ‘Chelsea, Chelsea, Chelsea’ and another word that again, I won’t repeat! We also kindly offered the Barcelona fans around us, ‘Shall we sing a song for you?’. It was all in good fun, and it made for a great night out. Looking back on it, I couldn’t be more proud to be a Chelsea In America member after last night.
This next moment was just blurry to me. Like, what was happening on the pitch didn’t register in my mind until the ball hit the back of the net. Right as our section was in the middle of Zigger Zagger-ing, Eden Hazard received the ball from Zouma, turned, ran down our opposite end past three Barcelona players, and dumped the ball into the back of the net. We went absolutely berserk. Yet, the craziest part was that I didn’t realize how brilliant of a goal Eden had scored until half-time when I saw this Vine:
I don’t know about you guys, but personally I love when Hazard scores goals like that one. It reminds me that the Belgian really is one of the world’s best. It was such a Messi-eque goal in my opinion – I could watch it all day long.
The Blues played really well in the first half and Kenedy impressed me. He’s raw, but talented indeed. Courtois made the stops when he had to, and Matic was brilliant. Oscar’s free kick was an absolute beauty that hit the crossbar. A couple inches lower, and it was 2-0 to us. Even worse, Chelsea broke and Diego Costa latched onto a long Fabregas through ball (I never get tired of saying that), which led to a one on one with ter Stegen, but Costa missed. We could have been three-nil up at halftime!
At the break, my step father and I stood on the longest line of all time to get refills of our ten dollar sodas. However, we stood there for what felt like forever before I noticed on the TV above me that the second half kicked off. I actually abandoned my step dad and sprinted back to my seat. Sorry Brian! After squeezing my way through loads of people and stepping on a man’s bare foot in the process (he shouldn’t have been wearing flip-flops at a football match), I was back in my spot and ready for action.
Unfortunately, Barcelona surged back and scored twice against us to take the lead. The first goal was just ridiculous. As the ball, almost in slow-motion, fluttered towards Chelsea’s open goal, it bounced in front of the goal line before Zouma acrobatically cleared it. That clearance banged off the bottom of the crossbar and flew out of danger, yet Suarez and his teammates were already celebrating as if it was a goal, and I guess at that point the referee just said “F*** it”, and went on with his life.
We rioted in our end, but to no avail! In hindsight, it was a phenomenal piece of skill from Suarez, but most certainly not a goal. The ground exploded into tons of cheers and chants of ‘Barca, Barca, Barca’ to which we replied with ‘We forgot that you were here!’. The second goal was very, very good, I’ll give it that. Sandro Ramirez broke down the left hand side, cut in on his right foot with a cute step over, evading both Victor Moses and Branislav Ivanovic, and put a lovely curling ball into the far corner of the net. Great goal from him. Pick that one out!
Sandro Ramírez puts Barcelona in front with a peach. pic.twitter.com/DygBXbMX4b
— Squawka (@Squawka) July 29, 2015
In the last ten minutes, Ramires won a free kick for Chelsea in a dangerous area. I pulled out my phone and began recording via Snapchat:
AHHHHHH pic.twitter.com/rry4JQBRXj — Evan McMurtrie (@EvanMcMurtrie) July 29, 2015
We went bonkers. Even better, the final whistle blew with a level score line of 2-2, which meant we’d be going to penalties to decide the night’s victor.
I recorded the entire shootout on my phone, but there’s no need to post all of the videos in here. Andres Iniesta and Radamel Falcao both scored the opening penalties before Barcelona’s young prospect Alen Halilovic attempted a panenka and hit the crossbar. Moses stepped up and took care of business, followed by Pique whose weak, stutter-stepped penalty was saved by Courtois. The next two penalty-takers were successful, setting up Loic Remy for the deciding spot kick, which he buried.
The winning penalty from yesterday! pic.twitter.com/0bqvlEXHth
— Evan McMurtrie (@EvanMcMurtrie) July 29, 2015
I got to my car at around 10:30 pm and didn’t walk into my house until four hours later! What a great evening last night was. Singing with the rest of Chelsea in America for ninety minutes and watching the Blues beat a Messi/Neymar-less Barcelona made the lengthy travel one-hundred-percent worth it. Come back to America next summer Chelsea, please!
