Partners: GoodsFromJapan | JapanVisitor | PortugalVisitor

Chelsea v Barcelona Champions League 2009: Life's not fair and neither is football

Sean O'Conor

What to make of Chelsea's agonizing recent clash with Barcelona, when they had four penalty appeals turned down?

The Blues have every right to feel cheated, even if in reality they were not. They were the better team in last year's final but lost it on penalties, and this year deserved to advance to the final again only to see the Catalans take their place thanks to a last-gasp away goal and, arguably, some unbelievable refereeing decisions.

I do not recall a Champions League game where a team has been so apparently robbed as Chelsea were, although it happened more than a few times in the old European Cup. Italy fans will be pointing to the infamous Byron Moreno's cack-handed officiating of their defeat to South Korea in the 2002 World Cup as the last well-known case of a referee spoiling a match, although cynics will point out it was the Italians who first made the influencing of referees an industry in itself.

On reflection, I think two of the four appeals were not strong claims - Michael Ballack's blast struck the upper underside of the arm of a defender facing the other way, and Didier Drogba's fall to earth was inconclusive, especially when it involved a player who has admitted diving in the past.

Dani Alves' hauling down Florent Malouda was a probable penalty however and Gerard Pique's cuffing of the ball was simply a cast-iron spot kick, in almost unobstructed view of the referee.

That Tom Henning Øvrebø and his Norwegian assistants failed to give Chelsea a single penalty is baffling, especially when the man in the middle counted 21 Champions League encounters to his name. He did however make a hash of Italy v Romania at Euro 2008, mistakenly ruling out an Italian goal and awarding a non-penalty to Romania. It should be noted the fourth official at Chelsea on Wednesday was also terrible, allowing the technical areas at Stamford Bridge to descend into mayhem at times.

Were the Viking team of UEFA officials out-of-their depth, bribed, coerced or just having a seriously off-night? UEFA's website does not even mention the furore, proof those in charge of the game still have a sense of humour. Who knows why Øvrebø did not blow his whistle, but let us pray his career is not derailed like Anders Frisk's was by Chelsea hooligans, and that he and his family do not suffer the same sort of abuse suffered by Karl-Josef Assenmacher and Urs Meier at the hands of English fanatics. These were serious errors, but not that serious.

If we find out Øvrebø was bought, then we can arrest him. If he was merely inept, as it appears, then UEFA can strike him off, send him on a refresher course or just keep him away from big games like this. Any punishment exacted independently by so-called supporters is wholly unacceptable.

Thank the lord Jose Mourinho is long gone from Chelsea. Had the impetuous Portuguese been at the helm this week, then Stamford Bridge post-match might have resembled the battle of that name from 1066.

What can be done to prevent this happening again? Very little, unless we retrospectively analyse game decisions with an arbitration panel and change the scorelines, a process so byzantine and highly-contestable it will never happen. The biggest problem with rewriting match history is that the game's narrative ebbs and flows for an hour and a half, making 'what-if' debates and retroactive decision making moot.

Chelsea must also blame themselves for not scoring more and not preventing Andres Iniesta from hitting their onion bag with a couple of minutes to go, but they should have had at least one penalty.

Chelsea coach Guus Hiddink was a model of grace to the cameras at the final whistle, unlike the raging bull Drogba, but even was forced to cast doubt on the referee's integrity at the press conference afterwards.

"But if you have seen three or four situations waved away, then (Øvrebø's performance) was the worst I have seen," he said. "At this moment, I'd have to think a lot if I have seen worse...Conspiracy is a very tough word and you have to be able to prove it. But when you analyse things closely, then I also start thinking."

Yes, yes, referees need better and more training, and for big games it helps if they have experience of the big leagues, but even then the potential for human error remains. The best ref of recent years was probably that outstanding Italian Pier Luigi Collina, who nevertheless made the odd slip.

So until we perfect bionic match officials with peripheral and telephoto vision from several angles as well as the ability to review incidents in micro-seconds, excruciating error-strewn nights like these will remain part of football.

There's nothing new about feeling cheated in sport and perhaps one of football's assets is that the best team does not always win. That David can beat Goliath with a sneaky last-minute winner having been under the cosh for 89 minutes is still a wonderful possibility.

No matter how much you dominate the stats for possession, shots on target and territorial play, or how aesthetically you perform, the only criterion for victory is how many times the ball crosses the opponents' goal-line. That's all. Fans will say their team 'played well' in all honesty despite having lost, or that the result was 'harsh', but they still implicitly accept the natural laws of the game in a way those cowards who threaten referees do not.

But when injustice is meted out by a visible individual, what Ted Hughes called the "cold clockwork" of fate we forever rail against assumes a human form, in this case with a web page and a home address in Oslo.

One just hopes those keyboard ultras promising to murder Mr Øvrebø remain paper tigers who will come to their senses before the name of the whole sport is defiled forever.

Fan is short for fanatic of course and for millions of people, football is clearly much more than just a game. It engenders intense levels of emotion, captured momentarily in the wild-eyed rage of Drogba at the final whistle.

But at the same time, all of us connected to this common passion, football, must learn to live with the fact that the Beautiful Game is not always a fair one.

Sean O'Conor

"The Onside In-Site" Copyright © From 2000. All rights reserved. Soccerphile Ltd.