The Champions League knockout stages continued tonight with CSKA Moscow drawn against Sevilla whilst, in the tie of the round, Inter Milan played Chelsea.
Mourinho used to manage Chelsea and turned them into the successful side they are today before leaving for Inter, creating a new team of Superstars in Italy. Tonight he welcomed Chelsea to the San Siro and wasn’t ready to let his old players get the better of him.
Inter Milan exploded into action and opened the scoring with just three minutes played. Diego Milito drove his shot past Cech to lift the lid off this massive stadium.
Chelsea looked strong after going 1-0 down and played some decent attacking football. Drogba rattled the bar from a free kick before Ballack came close from distance. The Blues seemed to have the better of the first half although Inter did miss a great chance to go 2-0 up when Eto’o received the ball in the area but miss-hit his shot.
In the second half Chelsea quickly thrust themselves back into this tie. Kalou took the ball outside the box and calmly curled in a beautiful shot from distance, the Goalkeeper should have done better but it was a sweet equalizer nevertheless. The scores weren’t level for long though and just three minutes later Cambiasso rifled one in from distance to push Inter into a 2-1 lead.
Chelsea then lost Petr Cech to injury and they played out the rest of this game struggling to get back into it. Inter Milan (as predicted in my article yesterday) went on to beat Chelsea, although Chelsea will still fancy their chances in the second leg with the score only at 2-1.
In the other match of the night Sevilla were hoping for an away win against CSKA Moscow to ease their progress in the Quarter Finals but they didn’t have everything their way in a hard fought match.
Negredo took the lead with twenty-five minutes gone, slotting in his first Champions League goal and gifting Sevilla a vital away goal. A simple tap-in after some slick play from Navas. CSKA created plenty of chances in the first half but they struggled to find the back of the net as Sevilla did very little other than take the lead.
Gonzalez grabbed a deserved equalizer for CSKA when his shot flew in from distance, leaving the ‘keeper well and truly beaten. Towards the end of the game Necid nearly scored another for Moscow but he failed to capitalize on a one-on-one situation and the game ended 1-1.
