LONDON — Going for broke in the Champions League can inspire an athlete, like Didier Drogba, to the absolute limits of his formidable match-winning powers.
It can also reduce the peace of mind of intelligent but partial bystanders to jelly.
On a crisp, cold Tuesday night in London, where
Chelsea simply had to beat
Valencia in order to reach the last 16 in European club competition, Drogba was immense at the crucial times. He scored twice. His pass created a third goal. His presence was too much for a Valencia team that surrendered to him, 3-0.
In the stands, Bruce Buck, the lawyer who became Chelsea’s chairman after doing the legal work for Roman Abramovich to buy Chelsea in 2003 — and to purchase its multimillion-dollar players ever since — was riding a whole wave of emotions.
Drogba, from Ivory Coast, is 33 and may be in his last season as a Chelsea player. Buck is from the United States and has been conducting European mergers and acquisitions to the tune of billions, not millions, of euros, pounds and dollars for 28 years.
He was a Chelsea fan before Abramovich flew in from Russia to buy the team wholesale. And Buck’s role now includes preparing Chelsea to move through the transition of changing an aging side, to move toward a point of financial self-sufficiency, and to prepare for the day when Abramovich is no longer the private and personal benefactor of its fortunes.
None of that daunts him.
But the fear of losing the match Tuesday, or even of drawing it, which could have eliminated Chelsea from the Champions League for this season, weighed heavily on Buck.
A few weeks ago, viewing the team’s aspirations and its future, he had answers for everything.
On Tuesday, sitting in the deserted stand more than an hour before kick-off, he admitted to being nervous — very nervous.
Down below us, André Villas-Boas, the young Portuguese who last summer became the eighth team manager hired in the turbulent time of Abramovich, was preparing to be daring.
Villas-Boas selected the aging war horse Drogba for the match rather than Fernando Torres, the $80 million striker Chelsea bought last January. And he dropped Frank Lampard, a mainstay in Chelsea’s midfield for almost every big and important game since he joined the West London club 10 years ago.
That, of course, is the coach’s call.
It doesn’t matter who the fans, the critics, the chairman or the owner think should be on the field. But it matters, and it can be terminal to the coach’s tenure if he gets it wrong.
Villas-Boas didn’t err. His midfield preference for the Brazilian Ramires and the Portuguese Raul Meireles, and for the 20-year-old Spaniard Oriol Romeu to play the aggressive anchor role behind them, gave Chelsea the youth, the speed, the relentlessness that Lampard, at 33, is beginning to struggle to sustain.
Yet at that same vintage, Drogba conversely proved that experience, and readiness for the big night, are priceless.
It is amazing to recount that Valencia, third in the Spanish league and the scorer of seven goals in its last Champions League game against the Belgian side Genk, appeared afraid of Drogba.
Fearful of his reputation, cowering in the face of his still blatantly bullying force. Drogba, in truth, gave a strange performance. He didn’t always hold his position as the central striker; he drifted deep to midfield or wide to the left flank.
Was he hiding, resting, or obeying a conservative team plan ordered by Villas-Boas? Whatever, he showed up when it mattered.
After just three minutes, prompted by a judicious through ball from the former Valencia winger Juan Mata, Drogba flexed his muscle, Valencia fell away, and he scored with a low, slightly deflected shot. Almost 20 minutes later, Drogba, in that deeper role, held onto the ball, then released it right on cue for Ramires to burst into the penalty box. Ramires then did a Drogba — he shouldered aside a defender and single-mindedly shot the second goal.
Chelsea now could afford to do something that is alien to Villas-Boas’s avowed intent to make this a more fluid, attacking Chelsea. He instructed the team to play conservatively, to allow Valencia to dominate the play and the ball. But only up to a point.
When Valencia tried to use its possession, it found such a congested Chelsea defensive area that its attacks petered out at the edge of the penalty box. Bransilav Ivanovic, John Terry and Ashley Cole, ably assisted by Chelsea’s strengthened midfield, shut off the spaces so that Petr Cech was stretched to make only one truly memorable save. Drogba, though, was not finished. He wanted to take all the free kicks. He was hungry for more goals, and he got one in the 76th minute when another slide-rule pass from Mata put him in the clear. That was Drogba’s 36th goal in 69 Champions League matches.
Villas-Boas then withdrew the Ivorian, to a standing ovation, and gave Torres a few minutes of game time to earn his money. Chelsea was through, and not simply as a runner-up but as group winner, because Leverkusen only tied Genk, 1-1, on Tuesday.
Villas-Boas used the victory to whip the English news media, which he said had “persecuted” his team.
The owner, Abramovich, wherever he was, remained as silent as ever.
Lampard, surely realizing that change is coming and that age is his enemy now, kept his counsel.
And Chairman Buck? Drained by emotions he cannot, dare not, show while conducting huge European business mergers, he took a long, hard drink of his Coca-Cola.
This victory buys Chelsea at least three more months in Champions League contention. Everyone knows, or everyone assumes, that winning it is the prize that keeps Abramovich spending. But one question that Buck could answer Tuesday was, “What gives a man a greater buzz, advising on a $30 billion merger or an $80 million player purchase?“
“There’s no question,” he replied, “and no comparison.”
The game, he said, gives the greater highs and lows. Greater uncertainty, too.
