London, 2 May 2009

Off, then, to Stamford Bridge, for the first time in too long. It being a weekend, the tube is in chaos - those poor, poor tourists - but by a nifty bit of line-hopping I'm there early enough to get lost in the Fulham Broadway shopping centre, and, yes, another Pret A Manger is just what the world needs. I watch the football fans merging with a battalion pretty girls off to a posh wedding: as George Orwell might have noted if he hadn‘t been busy with all that writing stuff, it's getting increasingly hard to tell them apart.
I slouch in the sun drinking coffee and yes another Starbucks is just what the world needs, but remember they don't do franchises, just licences. The sniper alley between Fulham Broadway and Stamford Bridge used to be a battlefield; now it's as benign and upscale as American football. A good thing, I suppose.
The streets are lined with a travel company's representatives dispensing leaflets offering myriad Champions League Final tours. Strangely they're not so keen on revealing their prices. Take your pick: this is either a) because these tours are too cheap to mention or b) because they're so extraordinarily over-priced the company are waiting until a final berth is secured when they know the less worldly fans will be fretting about logistics. If the direct flights are overbooked and overpriced, my advice - not that anybody's asked - would be to simply fly via any other European hub. It'll be less convenient, but cheaper and imagine the queues at Fiumicino for flights to, say, Manchester the morning after in comparison with those bound for, say, Frankfurt. Just a thought. Don’t thank me.
Chelsea are not the most press-friendly of clubs - the only extant part of dear, dear Ken Bates's legacy - but they've radically upped their off-field game of late, even if it still takes two security checks to gain admission to their training ground off the A3. The food is hot and edible, if not up to the divine level of their neighbours at QPR and the staff are unfailingly friendly. Even so, the press box is a dump, the television screens too small, the replays too amateurishly delivered and they have the venal gall to charge for wi-fi.
However, the really good news is that nobody sees my traditional pre-match tumble. Result: one cup of tea over my scalded hands, soggy trousers (I know, I know), but a laptop as dry as the day it was purchased. All things considered, this is good news. I make a mental note to tie my shoelaces before moving in future.
The game is a strange one. Chelsea ought, certainly, to be thinking about Barcelona and Fulham ought, perhaps, to be thinking about Europe, but Guus Hiddink has selected a remarkably strong team. This means three goals in the opening 10 minutes, a masterclass in the art of strikeplay from Didier Drogba and Nicolas Anelka - of course they can play together, great players always can - and yet more grist to Hiddink's coaching mill.
Should he stay or should he go? He still says he'll go and he probably will, but everyone knows who's pulling the strings and signing the cheques at the Russian FA and Chelsea. Perhaps some consultancy role might be the way forwards.
Afterwards, Hiddink looks pleased with himself, but he's too smart not to add caveats about sloppyness, while Hodgson is even more self-lacerating, although Fulham had their moments. I'm liking him more and more these days and reading not too closely between the lines, it's clear he fancies Barcelona on Wednesday. He's rarely wrong about this kind of thing.