As the EPL winning team flew to Germany there was an akward silence on the plane. Charlton were reigning CL premiers but qutie a few of the players had never experienced a CL Final. The team arrived in Berlin and immediately made their way to the 5 star hotel. The training schedule was going to be quite light, but manager Cloete had explaiend to the players that menthally it would be quite demading. As he wanted to go through every last tactic, set play and situation that could possibly arise.
Celtic had been recruiting well over the past few season but this was without a doubt their most important game in their history. Any team that boasted Defoe, Saviola, Vicente, Dyer, Lythe, Thwaites, Joe Cole, Hersi and Cassano was a force to be reckoned with. However Charlton considered themselves lucky as Cassano had only just moved to Celtic and was ineligible for teh Champions League.
As the build-up to kick off was getting more tense by the minute the anticipation in Germany, England and Scotland was also growing. This season teh Italian teams had been knocked out in the quarter-finals after a poor showing by their standards. So it was a typical England vs Scotland match, teh rivalry between the two nations dated back thousands of years ago. Who will take home the crown of European champions?
The Charlton team were all extremely silent as they travelled to the Olympiastadion at 4 PM for the 7:30 PM kick-off. They would get an hour and a half training session before being ushered into teh change rooms. The training was basically all just warm-up drills and a bit of a dead ball revision situation. Alessandro Di Matteo, Giorio Pellizzaro and Tony Cottee were all dishing out experienced advice at the training. And it was Cloete's most trusted man, Pellizzaro, who lead the training. Meanwhile Cloete hismelf was walking around in a frenzy trying to work out what Charlton would need to do defensively to keep Celtic out.
After training the players and coaches moved into teh dressing rooms. Cloete went over all the tactics again and named teh first team. Cloete made a big surprise by naming the inexperienced Ferrara over Mark Byrnes. Tieme Klompe was to be his defensive partner who should add alot of experience at the back. After one last motivational speech from Cloete, soemthign which he was famous for, the Charlton players sprinted onto the field to the huge roars of the German crowd, including qutie a few Englishmen who had made the trip to see their beloved Charlton play.
Charlton kicked off and after only 2 minutes they made a dream start. Patrick Robin had jinked past 3 defenders before rocketing a shot towards goal. GOOOOALLLLL!!!! Valverde was powerless as teh CHarlton players ran over to congratulate the young captain. Just 3 minutes later Charlton made it two. Richardson set Martin Bures up who didn't waste the opportunity, but isntead put Charlton 2-0 up. The 31 year old Czech continued his brilliant goal scoring season playign from AMC. Eventually the first half concluded and the attendance of 76 202 had been announced. Four minutes after half time diaster struck for Charlton, Defoe volleyed a shto into the goal after some great player by Kieron Dyer. But just 6 minutes later Patrick Robin scored with an absolutely breathtakingly brilliant strike to put the English team up 3-1. It seemed almost certain then. As the last few minutes were played out the ref blew his whistle and Charlton were absolutely ecstatic! An ABSOLUTELY SUPERLATIVE season for the team. After winning the League Cup, FA Cup, Premier League and now the Chamions League. Patrick Robin was the man of the match in what was the most important match of his career. Cloete lavishly praised his side after an inpsirational speech and Robin held the Champions Cup aloft to the delight of everybody back home in England, At the stadium and most importantly to his team-mates. Charlton had done it, they had won the CL back-to-back for the first time ever and had won every tournament they had been in!
After the match Robin saw his value go through the roof to £15.75million. But at the end of teh day it was a brilliant team performance with other notables were Richardson, Hill and Bures who all put in great performances.
GREATEST CHARLTON SEASON. EVER!