Who’s the man on the pitch that’s going to decide matters in Moscow this evening? Perhaps you’re thinking that Didier Drogba will come good for Chelsea, as he’s prone to do on these sort of occasions? Maybe Cristiano Ronaldo will take a step nearer to becoming world player of the year by dazzling his opponents and scoring the winning goal? You wouldn’t be surprised either, if Frank Lampard bounced back from his terrible grief (as he did in the semi against Liverpool) by slotting home the winning penalty.
Such scenarios are highly possible, although Sky Sports report that Arsene Wenger expects another man to have a far more central role. Step forward Lubos Michel, the man who awarded ‘that’ Luis Garcia goal in 2005 and is in charge of officiating tonight’s game. The Arsenal manager can’t seperate the teams and expects the referee to do that instead.
“Every match is being decided on a referee’s decision and I wouldn’t put my house on a ref’s decision,” said Wenger.
“You saw in the semi-finals that every decision of the referee can influence the result.
“It’s that fraction of a second, too difficult to decide if it’s off-side or not. Is it a penalty or not?
“It is so tight between teams at the top in England. For me every big game has been decided by refereeing decisions.”
A little bit of sour grapes creeping in from Monsieur Wenger, who saw a number of controversial decisions effectively bring the Gunners’ silverware hopes to an end. Nevertheless, it would be no surprise to pick up tomorrow’s newspapers and find that the man in the middle is bossing the headlines once again.