FRANK LAMPARD admitted before kick-off that he’d been chilling on his sofa watching Netflix when the call came to rescue Chelsea’s season just over a week ago.
At the Bernabeu he found himself blinking back into the limelight, right at the heart of the showbiz industry.
AFPKarim Benzema continued his fine goalscoring streak against English opponents[/caption]
ReutersMarco Asensio doubled the score from the bench[/caption]
APBen Chilwell was sent off just before the hour mark[/caption]
GettyKalidou Koulibaly was forced off with a second half injury[/caption]
There was a loudmouth Hollywood money man shouting the odds to embarrass him and the world football’s great entertainers running rings around his team.
Chelsea are not dead and buried just yet in this Champions League quarter-final against the reigning champions of Europe.
Despite Ben Chilwell’s red card just before the hour, Chelsea kept the score down to two – courtesy of Karim Benzema and Marco Asensio.
But it is a strange old club Lampard has returned to as interim boss.
Co-owner Todd Boehly predicted a 3-0 win in the Bernabeu when he was ambushed by a Sky reporter earlier in the day – not something that would have happened during Roman Abramovich’s reign, when you’d have been more likely to hear Sooty Bear mouthing off on the telly.
Lampard would have been as unamused by that as he was by the SunSport story that Boehly had consulted James Corden before appointing him as Chelsea’s stand-in boss.
The regime of Boehly and Behdad Eghbali is weird and not so wonderful – dozens of vastly expensive signings but no centre-forward, talks of long-term projects but Graham Potter despatched within seven months.
And Chelsea in the bottom half of the Premier League after being outplayed by Wolves on Lampard’s comeback appearance at the weekend.
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Quiet evenings on the sofa with wife Christine must already seem beguiling to Lampard.
Still, as Lampard knows, Chelsea have a habit of winning European trophies when the chips are down – three times they did so after Abramovich made mid-season managerial changes, the last after Lampard’s own sacking in 2021.
There will be some minor sense of belief at Stamford Bridge for the return leg on Tuesday even if there is little logic.
Real boss Carlo Ancelotti, who won the Double with Lampard to the fore back in 2010, has made a habit of overseeing the demise of English clubs in the Champions League.
Chelsea, Manchester City and Liverpool all succumbed to the Spanish champions last term and they are hoping to complete the same hat-trick this season, with Jurgen Klopp’s men having already been sploshed 6-2 on aggregate and City again their likely semi-final opponents.
Lampard, the fourth man to have picked Chelsea’s team this season, would not have expected to be here when the Blues were ditching Borussia Dortmund in the previous round.
The last time he got the gig, youth team players were being promoted with the club under a transfer embargo.
This time Chelsea have so many senior players, some have to change in the corridor at their Cobham training base – and four their subs against Real cost more than a quarter of a billion pounds between them.
Despite all this, Chelsea were without a win in four games, or even a goal in their previous three, and Lampard opted for a cautious 3-5-2 – but they were almost ahead within four minutes.
From a Real corner the visitors broke like thunder and N’Golo Kante released Joao Felix, who scurried clear and had an angled shot saved by the legs of Thibaut Courtois.
Ancelotti had selected Eduardo Camavinga, usually a midfielder, at left-back and he was soon booked for dragging down Raheem Sterling after being caught out by a lofted pass from Enzo Fernandez.
It was a highly promising start from the Londoners and their followers – up in the altitude-sickness seats in the top corner of this vast building site – were in fine voice.
But after 21 minutes, Real, as they so often do, decided that enough was enough. And, suddenly, they scored.
Vinicius Junior won possession high up the field and it was Dani Carvajal whose pass – like a pitching wedge straight at the pin – picked out Vinicius, whose close-range volley was pushed out by Kepa Arrizabalaga.
Yet it only went as far as Benzema and when the Frenchman is inside the six-yard box he is a piranha in a paddling pool. First blood went to Madrid.
It was Benzema’s fifth goal in three appearances against Chelsea, following a brilliant hat-trick at the Bridge and a decisive header here last season.
Chelsea almost responded instantly, Reece James centering for Sterling, who forced another smart stop from former Blues keeper Courtois.
Real, with their showman’s strut, just kept doing wonderful things – a swivel from Luka Modric here, a back-heel from Benzema there, and Vinicius darting everywhere.
And just before the hour, Federico Valverde played an artful ball over the top to release Rodrygo, Chilwell nudging him over on the edge of the box and seeing red for the denial of a scoring opportunity.
Lampard, who’d already lost Kalidou Koulibaly to injury, sent on Kai Havertz and Trevoh Chalobah for Sterling and Felix. It was now a 5-3-1 designed to limit damage.
It didn’t work, though. Soon, Real played a corner short and Vinicius cut back for Marco Asensio, freshly arrived as a sub, thudded in a low shot, with a deflection off Wesley Fofana foxing Kepa to double Chelsea’s deficit.
At the death Antonio Rudiger, never a Lampard favourite at Chelsea, made a key block to deny Mason Mount.
Had that gone in, Lampard might truly have fancied a Tinseltown storyline next week.