Manchester United's double bonus as Chelsea pay the penalty in Moscow

Manchester United are renowned for a spot of last-gasp heart-stopping drama, but they’ll be hard pressed to come up with something to beat their Champions League final victory over Chelsea in Moscow last night.

They took it to extra time against Benfica at Wembley in 1968 before lifting old “Big Ears”, and Ole Gunnar Solskjaer carved his named in the Book of Memorable Moments when he squeezed the ball past Bayern Munich’s Oliver Kahn in added time at the Nou Camp to seal a 2-1 victory in 1999 – and confirm that unique treble.

So it was inevitable that they would leave it late against Chelsea – so late, in fact, that the game was in its second day before they secured another nail-biting win, courtesy of a penalty shoot-out victory.

But that simple fact alone doesn’t even tell by half the nerve-wracking experience they put themselves, and their army of travelling fans, through in achieving another remarkable Premier League and Champions League double.

For 115 minutes the game spluttered and sparodically burst into a glorious pyrotechnical display that everyone hoped would grace a game of such magnitude.

But at that precise moment, five minutes before the penalty shoot-out, Didier Drogba, not for the first time, was responsible for a crazy piece of madness when he appeared to slap Nemanja Vidic across the face right under the nose of a linesman, and was shown a red card.

Outbursts of cramp had outnumbered any half-hearted spats there might have been between the players up to that point, and Drogba’s action was even more mystifying when you consider that the incident that brought it about shouldn’t have raised even an eyebrow let alone an angry hand.

And if that wasn’t enough for one night and part of a second day (they kicked off at 10.45 at night in Moscow to accommodate European TV viewers), then the penalty shoot-out was quite extraordinary. Russian roulette at 1.35 in the morning in Moscow!

Carlos Tevez and Michael Carrick scored for Manchester United and Michael Ballack and Juliano Belletti for Chelsea to square it at 2-2.Then Cristiano Ronaldo, of all people, had his kick saved by Petr Cech, and it went in Chelsea’s favour until John Terry strode up to take what wsould have been a trophy-winniing spotkick.

But the man who has scored so many vital, and often late, goals for Chelsea seemed to lose his footing on the rain-soaked turf and sliced his shot wide.

Anderson and Ryan Giggs established a 6-5 lead again for United again but when Nicolas Anelka’s shot was saved by Edwin van der Sar, the emotional joy of the United players, Sir Alex Ferguson and all bhis sidekicks, and the Red army simply exploded.

United had been the better team in the first half and had they headed for the interval with a three-goal lead no-one would have argued.

Michael Essien must have been having nightmares at the prospect of plugging the troublesome right-back spot for Chelsea and coming up against arguably the finest talent in the world at present in the shape of Ronaldo.

His fears became reality in the 22nd minute when the Portuguese youngster climbed about a foot higher than the Chelsea defender to guide Wes Brown’s cross from the right wide of Cech and into the net.

That was goal No.42 for Ronaldo this season, and probably the most important.

How Carlos Tevez managed to miss two more glorious chances to increase United’s lead is anybody’s guess, although Cech showed remarkable reflexes to beat away Michael Carrick’s drive from the rebound.

But Chelsea are nothing if not resilient, and it was perhaps inevitable that United would be made to pay for those missed chances, and sure enough, in the last minute of the half, Frank Lampard pounced on a couple of cruel deflections to slip the ball past the floundering Van der Sar.

Just as the first half belonged to United, so the second was bossed by Chelsea, prompted no doubt by subtle touches introduced by Avram Grant.

Paul Scholes and Carrick became less influential as Lampard, Florent Malouda and a more adventurous Essien made inroads into the heart of United’s defence. And Drogba almost clinched victory with a superbly crafted shot that struck the outside of the upright.

Ryan Giggs was introduced late on to break Sir Bobby Charlton’s record number of appearances for the club, but when the game went into extra time it was  Lampard again who clipped the United post with another effort.

Then came an incredible chance for United when Patrice Evra produced the pace of an Olympic sprinter to reach a brilliant crossfield pass from Wayne Rooney and turn the ball back into Giggs’s path. Only an equally incredible headed deflection by Terry kept the scores level.