Coming off the ropes to seek redemption at last

THE ageing, creaking fighter knew he was nearing the end. He knew his best days were behind him and that his chance of landing the title he had so desired was probably gone. But then he changed his trainer and something started to stir. He took an early pounding from a loose-cannon Italian but outlasted him. He brushed aside a Portuguese journeyman to set up a bout against the most feared boxer on the planet, a fighter they said might be the best ever. There was a theory he had a glass jaw, but how to find it when you were being pummelled by relentless combinations? Yet he did, bunkering down and taking a pounding but landing three savage blows himself. And so, suddenly, the ageing fighter has a one-off shot for the title. It’s on the German favourite’s home patch so it won’t be easy, but it would make for a terrible climax if it were.

Chelsea’s progress to the Champions League final has had a Hollywood quality, so much so that it has seemed almost contrived at times. To be 3-1 down to Napoli, for Fernando Torres to score his late and positively redemptive goal in the Camp Nou, for Didier Drogba suddenly to rediscover his snarl… and now, of course, at the very last, they’ll have to beat Bayern Munich in Munich with a severely depleted squad. “From the spirit we showed in Barcelona, we can do anything, and it’s about making sure we can do it on the day,” said Frank Lampard. “We’ve had a tough season. I’ve had tough moments. But we’re sitting here on the verge of maybe the greatest season ever.”

The redemptive paradigm, of course, isn’t quite as simple as that. Chelsea are not an old boxer fighting off the effects of age; they’re a club at which consistent mismanagement has led to the development of an ageing core that is both the club’s great strength and its weakness. In them lies the spirit of which Lampard speaks, but in them lies the conservatism that has – whether deliberately or not – seen five managers depart since Jose Mourinho left the club, undermining any long-term plan or attempt to rejuvenate the squad.

Bayern’s narrative might not quite be so dramatic, but they too could be about to end 11 years of yearning. Perhaps their anguish hasn’t been quite as intense as Chelsea’s, the financial investment not quite so great, but they too would have expected more from the last decade than one Champions League final (lost). They also had their long look into the abyss as, after a superb start, their season threatened to unravel as a flurry of poor league results was followed by a 1-0 defeat to Basel in the last 16 of the Champions League. The Bundesliga was drifting away from them and so too it seemed was the Champions League.

Then they beat Hoffenheim 7-1, thrashed Basel 7-0 and put six past Hertha Berlin in successive games. This was the response of champions and, slightly oddly given his flaky reputation, Arjen Robben was at the heart of the upsurge in form. With Borussia Dortmund putting together a record-breaking unbeaten run – and winning 1-0 against Bayern in a match in which Robben had a shocker, playing Robert Lewandowski onside for the goal, missing a penalty and then blazing over an open goal – the league proved beyond Bayern, but the upsurge careered them past Marseille and Real Madrid.

They too have problems with suspensions. Chelsea will be without John Terry after his red card for kneeing Alexis Sanchez in the back, and Ramires, Branislav Ivanovic and Raul Meireles for accumulation of yellow cards; Bayern have the right-back David Alaba, the centre-back Holger Badstuber and the holding midfielder Luis Gustavo suspended.

For Bayern, Luis Gustavo is probably the biggest loss. It was the triangle he formed with Bastian Schweinsteiger and Toni Kroos that allowed Bayern to dominate the midfield against Real Madrid in the semi-final and, unless the increasingly lumbering Anatoliy Tymoshchuk is deployed in his place, it’s hard to see a direct replacement in the Bayern squad. Schweinsteiger, presumably, will drop deep into the holding role, with Kroos taking up Schweinsteiger’s shuttling role with the inconsistent Thomas Muller brought in behind the front three.