We are the Champions!

Yesterday, Manchester United played Chelsea in Moscow for the Champions League final, and our Manchester Red Devils won! Trevor took the day off work so we could watch the game, which kicked off at 1:45 p.m. CST. We made our way to J. Patrick's up the block after finding no room to sit and eat at two much more crowded soccer bars. But we had our leisurely lunch ($.75 potato skin special!) at J. Pat's by the time the game started. There was one Chelsea fan (who was quite vocal about his dislike for our boy Ronaldo), but we outnumbered him by two when a group including another Man U. fan showed up. Dan Segar, on vacation on the West Coast, found an Irish pub to watch the game, and ran into this super-fan:



We were astounded at the odds of him finding a guy with such fandom tattooed literally all over him. We weren't quite so lucky, but Trevor and I did the bar and the team proud in our jerseys (though the awful Chelsea fan is in the background). I thought Trevor was taking a picture of the crest, which is why I'm trying to smooth it out by scrunching the front of my jersey.



Our first goal was made by our boy Ronaldo (much to the chagrin of the Terry-jersyed fan) and started the game off with a bang. Chelsea's Frank Lampard scored one for them, which we didn't feel too bad about because his mom passed away this week and we think he deserved to score in her honor.



We held them back with our fabulous Vidic/Ferdinand/Brown/Evra defense, and while Paul Scholes was doing his own unique defending, he got an elbow (or forehead...we're not quite sure) in the face and bled Manchester Red all over the pitch.



Soon, the hateful Dider Droogba, in another show of his continued poor sportsmanship, gave our Vidic a smack across the cheek and was rewarded with a red card. We were thrilled, not only because he's a horrible drama queen and only a part-time good player, but also because his ejection put Chelsea down one man, which made our job that much easier.



The game's official 90 minutes ended with the game still 1-1, so we were given two fifteen-minute overtime periods. This still didn't do anything but cramp up both teams, and by the end of the added thirty minutes, the score hadn't changed. This meant penalty kicks, and by that time in the evening--past midnight in Moscow--it had started to rain quite heavily. It was kick for kick until Ronaldo missed his shot, by hesitating a bit too long before the kick and allowing Cech, the Chelsea goalkeeper, to block it. In the end it was down to John Terry, Chelsea's captain and a player both Trevor and I admire, but he slipped up during his kick and missed the shot.



It then went to sudden death penalty kicks, the first team to score a goal and save the shot of the other team would win. We had Nani put his into the back of the net, the young Anderson's goal, and then the goal by my jersey's namesake, Giggs. Man U. was ahead by one when Anelka came up for Chelsea, kicked, and EDWIN VAN DER SAR, our fabulous, lanky keeper, punched the ball aside and won the game! It was thrilling, to say the least.



And that was the game. We celebrated in the bar with hugs to strangers (and we got thoroughly ignored by the Chelsea fan, though everyone else was congratulating Trevor and me [though we did very little except eat lunch and drink a few pints...]), while the lads in red celebrated in the Moscow rain.





We had a fabulous time, came home and took massive naps. Although we were happy to be here in Chicago watching the game, Trevor did find out that Russian dolls painted like our players were sold at Luzhniki Stadium. It might have been worth the trip just to get one.

Well, today Trevor had to go back to work, and I've got to fix up my syllabus for MCC. I've got a couple of weeks before summer session begins, but syllabi are due Friday. We might not have as exciting news as this win for a while, so we'll relish it for a few more days. Red Devils, onward!