Chelsea Football Club of the Barclays Premier League of England made a historic capture of the UEFA Champions League title with a chess end game of the highest order. It was not magic that they did so and we told you they were going to do it. (Get yourself a copy of The Anatomy of Football)
The Londoners stunned a confident and wasteful Bayern Munich to win a maiden European championship at the Allianz Arena in a penalty shootout after a 1-1 draw of full-time and a stalemated extra-time.
It was the man Drogba who had equalised for Chelsea in the 88th minute who became the man of the show, as he tucked in the winning kick to send the English wild.
Thomas Mueller's 83rd minute header past Petr Cech had 'Champions' written all over it until the African from Ivory Coast sang.
The Cup with the Big Ears was last in the Bayern cabinet, who had it four times in their history, in 2001. They had the luxury of having Arjen Robben miss a spot-kick given away by Didier Drogba, as Cech heroically saved it during open play.
It was a sweet victory for Chelsea, who lost to Manchester United in the 2008 final on penalties, and were also undone in 2009's semi-final against Barcelona. Those dark moments were forgotten as the fans cried tears of joy.
Far from being value for money for many, the unpredictability of events made up for wow-factor. The hosts dominated the whole 90 minutes and were quite flat in extra time. The visitors' ultimate plan was not to lose it at any point of the match, which they executed very well.
Manager Rorbeto Di Matteo ensured they defended well against fierce attacks and potential heartbreaking wing-play from the Germans. It was a psychological game which built confidence on each player with each passing moment.
Chelsea were always going to be a better team as the match wore on, not much as to the manager's prudence, but based on the work ethic of men at work digging for gold.
Without a few of their influential players, it sounded like a suicide mission to enter Germany with a 'rooky' stand-in manager of little experience in Europe.
Tucked away nicely were spot-kicks by David Luiz, captain of the day, Frank Lampard, Ashley Cole and of course, D Drog.
Olic had replaced the regulation time scorer and his penalty-kick one-handedly stopped by Cech. It turned out that the usually dependable Bastien Schweinsteiger had no nerves to face the masked Cech as his spot-kick crashed the post.
Drogba closed the meeting in the only way he knows how. The result became a bitter-sweet victory for Roman Abramovich who began to ponder as to how not to give a full contract to the 'out of contract' 33 year-old Drogba and care-taker manager Di Matteo.
It is a preferred headache than to play second fiddle to every one in everything to the billionaire who pumped in cool cash to his vetaran footballers.
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