Another report from Billy "Stade de Louis 11 bridge" Brown:

Well, let me talk about the first 45 minutes... it really won't take long !

To call it dull would be an overstatement. I know that this is to be considered a "showcase" event, and not particularly important, but it strikes me that this game, a sort of Charity Shield for Europe, competed by the Champions and Cup winners (the difference being UEFA are the nominated charity), is still revered enough for the likes of AC Milan, Barcelona and Scousepool alike to add it to their list of Honours. So one expects the players of both teams to want to make an impression, if not for themselves, then at least for the fans, who have spent good money making a trip to a game thought by many to be irrelevant.

Well again we can't seem to start at the kick off. But thankfully, neither did Real Madrid. It was SO slow and boring that a few of us seriously considered going out, buying some paint, and enjoy the long laborious task of watching it dry..

Thank god for "Beefy" yet again (he deserved the MOTM award for my good money, not Poyet...but I'll come to that later), he stopped anything that came in his direction, and did his best to marshall the still incompetent Duberry, (who, unless he is giving somone a good seeing to I cannot for the life of me see why he's still in the team, and Ferrer, who is about as alert as a dead man) did brilliantly.

Where is Di Matteo ? He seems to be there only in person this season thus far. He looks completely lost, and just hasn't got a clue at the moment.. Please come back, we need you ! Dennis cannot do it all on his own, and needs your help. With both of you there, we have a great chance.

Back to the game: as I said, the 1st 1/2 was drab but there were some signs of afterlife in Zola, Wise, Beefy of course, and "Baba", the rest were merely passengers aboard a slow moving ship, and the best part were the chants of "oh Teddy Teddy, you went to Man United and you won FUCK ALL". The interval was much appreciated.

At the start of the second half another team appeared, and it was Chelsea, they started to look like the team we've learnt to love from the kick off. We passed the ball, Baba and Le Slow even made some runs and put some crosses in, but Gigi just wasn't up to it today, and should've been replaced by Flo from the off. We still had a habit of putting long balls into their half, but as elegant and skillful as Franco is, he is not 6ft tall, and never will be, although he went for them just the same cos he never stops trying. Finally, after 15/20 mins, Poyet.. the best a man can get, replaces Di Matteo, and our midfield began to take more shape as Wisey had some constructive help.

As we played so did Real, and we had a bit of a game on our hands. There were some dangerous moments from Madrid when Raul and Karembeu came pretty close, and but by the grace of God the ball did not enter our net. Hiero had a good few efforts, but it was Poyet who stole the show. Just when Zola was going to be substituted to allow Laudrup to make his debut, he put a beautiful ball in to Gus' path, who calmly hit a low hard drive into the back of the net...and we went wild. "There's only 1 team in Europe...1 team in Europe...." was sung by all of the 2,500 Chelsea fans lifting the sterile atmosphere of the Stade de Louis 11, which is a magnificent piece of architecture but lacks the passion of other arenas. The songs and cheers went on for the last 7 minutes and well into the following 30 minutes, during which the trophy was presented, and the team did their now infamous running and diving in a row, something that's becoming a habit now with all these cup wins. The goal was the only thing worth remembering, but the experience was great for me.