A penalty shoot-out is the sort of thing that separates the men from the boys. As a player, do you put your name forward as someone who can beat the keeper from twelve yards, or do you instead hide behind Frank Lampard and hope nobody notices you?
It appears that there were a few shirkers on Wednesday evening in the Chelsea camp. Setanta report that John Terry was not in the original list of penalty takers for the Blues and, while Drogba’s red card saw the captain shunted up the pecking order, there may have been one or two players that should have been stepping up to the plate first.
“John was not in the first five but when it comes to take them, somebody might say ‘I don’t feel well, I prefer somebody else take it’,” said Ten Cate.
“John was not in the first five to take a kick but things change during a game.
“Some people feel sick and the sending off of Drogba made us change it.
“It’s unbelievable this should happen to him though. We practiced penalties so much all last week and he was very confident. We were all confident.”
Ballack, Belletti, Lampard and Ashley Cole were the first four spot-kick takers, before Terry smashed his shot against the post. One might have expected Saloman Kalou to have been involved before his captain, while Michael Essien is renowned for having a powerful shot. Aside from the Ghanaian, there was only Carvalho and Cech who didn’t step up to the plate, with Drogba having had his marching orders in extra-time.