You have to give it to Jose, his tactical genius and his team’s discipline. He was spot on with (i) the selection of his first eleven (ii) his subbing of Maka for Mikel at half time (iii) his subbing of Diarra just after his yellow (iv) His half time talk which fires up the whole team everytime (v) the way his team kept its cool at the times of pressure and adversity.

After drawing 1-1 away, to go a goal down is the worst thing to happen. Because, in this situation you need to score two goals and in this process, you should not open up too much and push forward too much. If the aggressive two-goal hunt if we had allowed them to score one more goal, it would be almost game over. But Chelsea played top class football, ‘beautiful football’ in my opinion in terms of control of the game, dictating the pace of the game, outplaying the opponent and understanding the exact objective from this game and achieving it with no panic.

We did not start brightly but certainly brighter than Porto. So, Porto’s lead was completely against the run of play. Credit where it is due. That was a beautifully worked out quality goal from Porto. Lopez gave a pin-point pass to Quaresma, may be hoping for a one-two. Quaresma was already ahead of the defender in his line and his facing towards the goal gave him a headstart of few yards. But you cant miss the fact that it was a poor back line defensive error, that allowed Quaresma to move forward at will. Apart from this brilliant move by Quaresma, I think by and large, we kept him quiet. Diarra and Essien were winning the ball from Quaresma at some regularity.

Yes, we badly wanted a goal but Robben need not have dived like that in the box with just one thing in mind. The guy has got so much technique and quality that he does not need such unfair favour from the ref. He should cut this out. He thoroughly deserved his yellow. May be the ref overdid his stuff when he failed to spot a foul on Lampard just outside the box and mistook that for a diving too.

Chelsea absolutely shut the doors for Porto after this goal, even as we kept raiding them again and again. Porto very soon realised that they may not be able to break down the Chelsea defence once again. They fed their target man from anywhere to anywhere as their game became too one-dimensional and predictable. What stopped us from equalising was some poorly taken chances by Sheva, Ballack, Drogba, Robben and Lampard in the first half. This would go down as one of the matches in recent times where the ratio of shots on/off target is so pathetic.

Jose leaving the dug out for the dressing room with more than a minute left in the first half stoppage time told the story. I was sure that in the second half, we are going to massacre them, thanks to a possible half time blast by the boss. Drogba was urging the fans to cheer them on as they were kicking off for the second half. Jose brought on Mikel as he wanted to push for a goal. Requiring two goals in the second half, Mikel is a better bet than Maka. We shifted to 4-3-3 with Sheva on the left wing and Robben on the right with both Lampard and Ballack pushing forward and Mikel playing in a more defensive role.

In the 48th minute, the moment Helton made a mess of Robben’s half decent strike, Porto’s night was over. Helton did screw it up but he didnt seem to expect a long range strike from Robben when there were 4 or 5 blue shirts in the box. That was very similar to his stoppage time winning goal against Wigan in December. With another 45 minutes of play remaining, no way Chelsea were going to let this slip off.

Jose made another crucial substitution when he replaced yellow carded Diarra with Paulo. My respect for Diarra keeps increasing every match. He is pure gold and we should retain him in Chelsea at any cost. From the moment the second half kicked off, the winning goal from Chelsea was arriving any moment. Porto were hoping to take this game to the extra time but the blues were in no mood for all that.

As pressure was building and as Chelsea was creating havoc and chaos in the Porto defence, Michael Ballack scored his most important goal in his Chelsea career so far. How about that for a brilliant set up. Cole crosses to Drogba near the farpost who heads it again to Sheva who again heads it to Ballack for a free volley. Porto knew that even a stoppage time goal is enough to put them through. But the heads were down and they were sure that they let off a golden opportunity and Chelsea were cruising in style.

Captain Lampard knows that our game in the first half was not too impressive:

We knew it wouldn’t be an easy game. We didn’t play well in the first half and put ourselves under pressure, but in the second half we put it right. It was a great goal from Michael, he arrived in the box as he does and it was a great finish when we needed it.

[video]http://www.dailymotion.com/swf/2zU1PW7MSTcvH9Ji7[/video]

Jose feels that the equaliser turned the game:

At that moment (half-time) we were out of the competition. Three minutes later we are 2-2 on aggregate and it gave us more confidence to get through the game. (At half time) I asked my players to enjoy the situation, because we were out and had 45 minutes to be in again. The reaction I got was good. Three minutes after half-time, following a mistake by a great goalkeeper, we were at 2-2 and in with a chance of going through.

Meanwhile, Liverpool deservedly eliminated defending champions Barca while Roma surprised quite a lot by ousting Lyon. Red-hot Valencia knocked off Inter by their away goal advantage. I expect to see PSV, Madrid, Man Utd and Milan go through to the round of 8. The draw for the next round is on friday. I want to know who do you want us to play in the quarterfinals?