Chelsea 2012

Coach: Roberto Di Matteo

Chelsea's greatest night in European football came under caretaker manager Roberto Di Matteo, promoted from assistant after André Villas-Boas was sacked mid-season, who guided an unfancied and ageing squad through an improbable run to the 2012 Champions League final — played, with cruel symmetry, at Bayern Munich's own Allianz Arena. Chelsea were heavily outplayed for large stretches of the final, but resilient defending, an equalising header from Didier Drogba in the 88th minute, and a string of penalty saves from Petr Čech in the shootout combined to complete one of the most unlikely European triumphs in the competition's history. Drogba, in what turned out to be his final match for the club before a lucrative move to China, scored both Chelsea's equaliser and the decisive spot-kick in the shootout, a fittingly dramatic send-off for the player who had been the team's totemic figure throughout the Mourinho and post-Mourinho years. The win gave Chelsea their first-ever Champions League title and completed the full set of major honours for Roman Abramovich's ownership project, even though it came under a manager never permanently confirmed in the role.