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There is a short story in there somewhere, set in the wee hours of the morning on a cold, miserable Moscow night with the rain pelting down.
A most dramatic setting, old rivals colliding, sentimental personal tales entwining, Russian oligarchs and camera-shy American billionaires, old Scottish shop stewards, a hangdog Israeli — and penalty kicks.
There have no doubt been better matches played than yesterday's Champions League final, won by Manchester United 6-5 over Chelsea, but few with more perfect theatrical touches, in the beautiful game or any other.
It naturally divides into two acts, the two hours of soccer played between whistles, and the shootout that eventually decided it.
The game was in many ways a microcosm of Chelsea's turbulent, disappointing, inspiring and ultimately empty-handed season.
The Blues were extremely fortunate to escape from the first half tied 1-1. United didn't carry all of the play, but as befits the best club team in the world this year, it did create the best chances, taking the lead when Michael Essien somehow lost track of Cristiano Ronaldo in the penalty area.
A villain in England two years ago when he suckered Wayne Rooney into a red card during the World Cup, a hero for United this season and maybe a villain again if he gets his wish and slips away to Spain this summer, the sport's reigning glamour boy had plenty of space to size up Wes Brown's cross and head it behind Petr Cech.
It could easily have been 2-0 or 3-0 after that. In one magnificent sequence, emblematic of this year's United team, Rooney broke free with the ball in his own end, took off down the wing and hit a remarkable long ball to Ronaldo, who after a quick touch dropped it in front of the onrushing Carlos Tevez in front of the Chelsea goal. Cech just deflected the ball away, then made a great reflex save when Michael Carrick drilled the follow-up from close range.
But Chelsea got one back just before the half, a lucky-break rebound that Frank Lampard — invisible or inept to that point in the match — converted. So they weren't dead yet, just as reports of their demise were greatly exaggerated when Jose Mourinho took his act elsewhere last September.
In the second half, the flowing United attack ground to a halt, while Chelsea doggedly, if inelegantly, began to gain territory, aided to a degree by a grass pitch laid over an artificial surface that as the clock struck midnight began to resemble a swamp. In the 78th minute, Didier Drogba hit a goal post. In extra time, Lampard hit the crossbar (though United came close as well, when John Terry made a miraculous play, bending almost double in the air to head away a shot by Ryan Giggs that was bound for the goal).
Near the very end of a tense 120 minutes, Drogba was sent off for slapping Nemenja Vidic — and if that was his last moment in a Chelsea uniform, after a dead ordinary performance, what a cheesy way to go.
On to Act 2, the penalties, which almost no one admits to liking, which might be a lousy way to decide a championship, but which can be as compelling as anything in sport.
Sure, they're kicking a ball from short range hoping to hit great spaces of open net, but that's fine if just about every kick comes with its own storyline.
Ronaldo, beginning the third round, getting cute, as usual, doing a little stop and start, and then being beaten by Cech to give Chelsea the advantage. Lampard, whose mother died late in the season, stepping up immediately after him, driving the ball home and gazing up into the weepy Russian sky.
Calgary's Owen Hargreaves, who had played every minute of the match, finishing impressively, making no mistake, firing the ball under the crossbar (for he of many nationalities, better to be a bit more German and a bit less English when it comes to taking penalties).
Then to what would have been the final shooter of the fifth and final round, Chelsea captain Terry, who had left the last game of the Premier League season in agony with a nasty shoulder injury, his year apparently over. Instead, here he was poised to put a fairytale ending on his team's crazy season by winning the silverware they had been denied in the years that Chelsea dominated England.
Edwin van der Sar guessing wrong in the United goal. Terry with three quarters of the net empty in front of him. His plant foot giving way on the soggy turf. The ball sailing wide right.
Leaving the hero's role to Giggs, playing in his 759th match for United, surpassing the record of Sir Bobby Charlton, who was there watching from the stands.
Sure, Nicolas Anelka still had to miss, and he's a story in his own right. But it was Terry's tears, and Giggs's joy, that will be the lasting images of what-a-night.
