Ramires has arrived, and how!

Chelsea, last night, pulled off one of the greatest comebacks in Champions League history. With some saying this brand of anti-football is pathetic while others showered the plaudits on the rear guard for a fantastic display, either way, what was certain was that over the two legs Chelsea deserved to go through.

Each and every player played their heart out for those 180 mins (+ Barca time of course) but Ramires for me was an absolutely brilliant for the blues. For any young footballer watching those two matches, Ramires epitomized the box-to-box footballer.

Ramires, since his move to the blues, has mostly been deployed in the central midfield role helping the CDM out and making those bursts into the box whenever he can. In the first game against Barca however, Di Matteo made a tactical decision to deploy Ramires out wide – a masterstroke. It was in the hope that he that his pace and strength would cause Barca problems and boy did he cause some problems. Another reason for playing Ramires out wide was that he doesn’t shy away from doing the dirty work and with Alves, Messi and Sanchez overloading the wings, the fullback would need all the help he could get and again, Ramires did not disappoint.

Ramires was undoubtedly the best player over the two legs, but especially at the Camp Nou- he was a monster. You could see him bombing down the wing making an option for Drogba and co when Chelsea would attack and he was also the first one to run back to defend. He was like superman last night. His head never dropped when Chelsea conceded, he continued his box-to-box play and was duly rewarded with an outstanding goal. His defensive work did not suffer due to these surging runs and the great thing about it was that it wasn’t as if he would get back and just add another man to the defense, like most wingers/midfielders do, Ramires would get himself right in the midst of things, putting in tackles and forcing players to give up the ball. He won the ball off Messi multiple times by literally hounding him off the ball. He was there to start counter attacks and even usher the men who tried to take him on to the sidelines. It was an outstanding display of stamina, intelligence, grit and classy, classy finishing by the little Brazilian.

Not forgetting his contribution the week before as well, for he was the man Lampard picked out and after making a 40yard dash and chest controlling the ball, he played, what could only be described as the perfect pass on the run to Drogba, evading 3 defenders on its way to the Ivorian. Chelsea were pretty much on the back foot for the rest of the game and he defended absolutely brilliantly against an in-forn Messi and Xavi who were passing the ball much, much better than they were at the Camp Nou.

Two back to back man-of-the-match performances against the best team in club football (currently) without world footballer of the year, Lio Messi doing anything noteworthy despite his many efforts really shows you what a good job Ramires and Chelsea did. It’s a grave injustice that he will miss out on the playing at the grandest stage of them all due to suspension and needless to say, Chelsea will hugely miss this Brazilian machine in the final. Watch out for this lad though, for Ramires has well and truly arrived!