After falling 2-1 at the San Siro in the first leg of the UEFA Champions League Round of 16, Chelsea needs a strong performance Tuesday to avoid joining Real Madrid, AC Milan and the other Champions League spectators on the outside looking in.
Jose Mourinho returns to Stamford Bridge with his confident Inter Milan squad, its recent 3-1 loss to Serie A minnow Catania not withstanding. Milito and Esteban Cambiasso scored for Inter in the first leg, and Salomon Kalou found the back of the net for Chelsea's crucial away goal.
Chelsea would advance to the quarterfinals with a 1-0 victory, but can the Blues keep Inter off the scoreboard with Ross Turnbull in goal? Remember, Petr Cech suffered his injury in the first leg of the tie in Italy three weeks ago.
Chelsea-Inter (3:30 p.m. EST, FSE) and Sevilla-CSKA Moscow (3:45 p.m., FSC, 1-1 aggregate) are the two Champions League battles going on overseas.
In other soccer games of note on Tuesday:
Brad Friedel and Aston Villa face Wigan at DW Stadium in Premier League action at (3:45 p.m., FSC+), looking to creep closer to a Top 4 spot in the table. The Villans are six points behind 4th-place Tottenham with two games in hand.
Jose Francisco Torres' Pachuca will try to advance in the CONCACAF Champions League Tuesday night with its second-leg bout with Comunicaciones (10 p.m., Galavision). They drew 1-1 in the first leg.
If you will be watching any of Tuesday's games either on television or Internet feed, please feel free to share play-by-play or opinions in the comments section below.
Why would Capello put this guy at left back? He is a winger who has played in the middle as of late. I never understand England’s obsession with round pegs in square holes.
ie: Lampard and Gerrard on the pitch at the same time as they are essentially the same player.
That is the rule…
No question they were nasty too. Like I said I am not a fan of either team and overall would prefer to see this style of play not make it any further into the tournament.
is anyone else watching this pachuca game? it is getting crazy. comunicaciones had 2 players red carded in 3 minutes. a few minutes later pachuca scored and a few minutes after that pachuca conceded a penalty which comun converted. 80th min now, torres in.
When has Ballack even had an “on” game in the last few years? Tonight’s performance seemed completely on par for him.
Wolfgang Stark! anyone remember this douchbag from the Argentina-Chile U20 game in Canada?
from what I hear capello wants milner as a leftback replacement for cole….I hope that is where he puts him, because he scares me in the middle.
I don’t support Chelsea or Inter, but my heart was in my throat the entire game. Very emotional, physical game. Ballack was off his game tonight, horrible night for him. On Inter’s side, Lucio was amazing. He is the best center back in the world.
It has been proven time and again that the Most Valuable Player for Chelsea is Essien.
Without him, Chelsea is not the same team.
Bruce Arena’s lisp
And in good news for me as a Villa fan and bad news for me as a U.S. fan, James Milner has been a man on fire of late. He was the difference in today’s match, for sure. I can really see him playing a prominent role for England in South Africa.
I would love to see FIFA adapt a rule that only the team captain can approach an official. That would end all those circle the ref events.
chelsea may get away with dissent, but don’t kid yourself that inter wasn’t as nasty with rugby/and diving thuggery. That game had a foul every two minutes..terrible to endure
Yanks Abroad today in the Coca-Cola Championship: Cooper riding pine, Simek riding pine, DeMerit played the whole game in a win.
Also in the the League Championship, Slovenian Robert Koren played the whole game in West Brom’s win.
And Friedel was in goal for Villa as they beat Wigan.
Just because they got outbid doesn’t mean they don’t care. It’s very likely that Fox decided to make it a priority and ESPN was unprepared for that. I agree that it sucks for the most part, but I don’t think ESPN felt like just tossing it away. I think they got beat by Fox who clearly wanted to make a splash.
In my eye neither Inter nor Chelsea play anywhere near attractive football. Having said that, Chelsea absolutely have to be the biggest bunch of cheating, shoving, whining complainers I have ever seen in the sport! It’s simply unbelievable to me how much the refs allow them to complain incessantly every single play without showing them yellows for dissent!? Why does Chelsea get away with this? I can’t think of any other team that’s even remotely this bad who doesn’t get their fair share of dissent bookings for disrespecting the game. Chelsea = Rugby-Football-Thuggery = The kind of football nobody needs.
Good riddance.
Motta is one of the dirtiest players I’ve seen all year, however Inter deserve the win.
Looks like SCREAMING drogba was replaced by STAMPING drogba. Same net effect.
Inter spends way too much time squirming on the ground but still deserves the lead. Will we see SCREAMING DROGBA this year?
*Beautiful Inter-play?
So would you call it beautiful Inter-lay?
That was/has all been Sneijder
game over
Mancini’s scarf tying technique.
Wow some beautiful play from inter.
Is there any way to view the Chelsea match in HD on DirecTV? Thanks guys.
Int/Chl It’s sad to see the official allow rugby tackles in front of goal. He needs to enforce the rules to let the game open up. I have no favorite here, but zero/zero here is not the result of great defending but of lax officiating.
Great game so far.
Actually, they owned the rights but then didn’t care enough to outbid Fox. I think it really hurt the growth of soccer as most people won’t stumble upon the Foxregional sports channels to find the game like they did the ESPN channels. That said, having the final on regular Fox might be a big developement though.
I just don’t see Inter keeping Chelsea off the scoreboard… Inter better put one in the net this half or it could be curtains on Jose’s rule of Milan.
Sigi Schmidt’s girlish figure.
Maradona’s “Fat Jersey godfather wannabee” jewelry.
I’ll be happy if the world cup is half this exciting.
Yup! now we can only hope mourhino and ancelotti fight each other, thats the only thing that would make it better.
Diego Armando Maradona’s belly-sliding skill.
Great match to watch (chelsea/inter); I smell some reds coming at some point
Or David Moyes’ track suit. Or Martin O’Neill’s tracksuit and polo collar.
Bob Bradley’s track suit.
Things getting a little testy early on. looks like Inter want a a fight with Chelsea and vice versa.
Uncle Harry’s special Irish Coffee
its on a fox sports channel here, but only because I have ATT U verse.
Adu for the hat-trick eh? Give me Pele with 2 goals and an assist for Chelsea
Chelsea v Inter is on Fox Sports Net, their local network. In NYC it is on MSG plus. Check your local channels. Or, if you live in DC and Comcast Sports Net isnt showing it, flip over the Fox Sports Espenol and watch it in Spanish.
I have Inter going through with Freddy Adu scoring all three for Inter…
Chelsea v Inter is on FoxSports South HD for me…
I can’t believe fox is going to show sevilla and cska over inter/chelsea. craziness.
Phil Brown’s earpiece
Phil Brown’s halftime talks.
They don’t own the rights…yet
The perfect manager:
Mourinho talking to the media
Wenger buys the youngsters
Sir Alex halftime hairdryer treatments
Martin O’Neill’s sideline antics
Anyone else?
I still can’t believe ESPN is playing something else.