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Finals can be decided by luck, by skill, by a bad refereeing decision or by a brilliant managerial decision. But they can also be decided by someone doing something daft, and when the dust settles in Moscow and the Manchester United players finally untangle themselves from that gold ticker-tape, history will look back on this Champions League Final and find that Didier Drogba, rather than John Terry or Nicolas Anelka, was responsible for Chelsea's failure to finally get their hands on the big trophy that their owner covets most of all.

Sure, Terry had glory within his grasp when he stepped up to take the fifth penalty in the shoot-out, but fate conspired against him by making him slip on the sodden turf, while Anelka never looked like he was up for taking his kick. Drogba certainly would have taken one, with Henk ten Cate admitting that it would have been instead of Terry, and probably scoring to win the Champions League.

Instead he could only watch on after being sent off because of a row over a throw-in. Earlier in the match, United had returned the ball to Chelsea courteously after it had been kicked out because of an injury. Chelsea failed to respond in kind later on, kicking the ball out for a throw-in deep in the United half, so when the situation arose again in extra time, with cramp hitting both teams hard, the team in Red kicked it out for a Chelsea throw-in on the edge of their own box. As they had every right to do.

But Chelsea, still just as contentious and fiery when it comes to things not going their way as they were under Jose Mourinho, reacted angrily to this perceived injustice, culminating in Drogba giving Nemanja Vidic a slap in the face. The enraged Serbian defender was lucky to be restrained by players on both sides, preventing him from lashing back at Drogba, but in this day and age we should probably be more grateful that he didn't throw himself to the floor in mock agony, which a few players from either club would have done wihout hesitation.

After all the good work he has done for the club, it would be a shame if Drogba's last action for Chelsea was one that cost them the Champions League, but that's how history will judge him. But how will it judge the first ever all-English Final? Was it at least better than the all-Italian Final at Old Trafford a few years ago, which also went to penalties?

Thankfully yes, and both teams deserve credit for that. A lot was made in the build-up to the game about whether Sir Alex Ferguson would send out a team to 'go for it' and try to beat Chelsea on their own terms, and that is exactly what United did in the first half. They more than deserved the lead they got from Cristiano Ronaldo's header, and should have had a bigger advantage if Michael Carrick and Carlos Tevez had managed to convert chances that came their way.

Chelsea never got going in the first half and were extremely fortunate to be level at half-time, particularly as their equaliser came with the benefit of two deflections and a costly slip by Edwin van der Sar. In the second half, they were immeasurably better and had plenty of their own chances to take the lead - denied twice by the woodwork - while keeping United almost entirely at arms' length from their own goal, completely bossing a midfield that they had been overwhelmed in for the first 45 minutes.

Extra-time was more even, with both sides having chances, the best of which fell to United's record-breaking substitute Ryan Giggs, but after Patrice Evra had squared it to him with the goal gaping, he could only awkwardly poke it towards the goal for Terry to heroically head clear. Drogba's red card was the last meaningful action of the game, though the addition of two minutes of injury time at the end of each half was a curious quirk of the officials in a game where they got most things right. Maybe the electronic board was broken.

You don't always get what you deserve in penalty shoot-outs, and the two players who missed in the 'normal' shoot-out both seemed to have reasons why they would definitely score. Ronaldo's prolific season surely couldn't end with him missing a penalty in the shoot-out, could it? Terry's heroic efforts for Chelsea surely couldn't end with him slipping on his backside and slicing his potentially match-winning penalty off the post? Or that van der Sar, like Jerzy Dudek before him, could have a shaky game but end up as the hero for saving a penalty?

Afterwards, the likes of Avram Grant and Frank Lampard suggested that Chelsea hadn't got what they deserved from a game in which they both thought they were the best team, but the balance of play across the 120 minutes was probably about even. In those circumstances, penalties are the only way to settle things, and Chelsea missed two spot kicks to United's one, so they cannot really have too many complaints...

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