Drogba loses the plot | Single lapse so costly | How the action unfolded | Dickinson: referee was inept
Marcotti: the final the world wanted to see | How Chelsea rated | How Barcelona rated
Barclay: can Messi be match for United | Debate: were protests justified? | Graphic: Chelsea pay penalty

Conspiracy theories flew out of the Chelsea dressing-room faster than you could say José Mourinho last night, but there is one simple way of measuring if they are true. Should Tom Henning Ovrebo officiate a match above under-13 level outside his native Norway, then something is rotten at the heart of Uefa’s headquarters.

There is nothing wrong with Scandinavian officials, but this was a performance of such worrying ineptitude, mistake upon panicked mistake, that it was hard to work out whether Chelsea or Barcelona had come off worse.

How do you measure at least two blatant penalties for Chelsea against the muddle-headed dismissal of Barcelona’s Éric Abidal? Chelsea know who they think got the poor deal.

The theory being put forward at Stamford Bridge last night — though not so blatantly that it would land them libel writs or Uefa charges (things have calmed down a little since Mourinho’s day) — was that Uefa did not want an all-English final: ChelseaManchester United II.

Michel Platini, the Uefa president, has made no secret of his eagerness to stop the domination of the competition by Barclays Premier League clubs, so Ovrebo was, consciously or not, doing his master’s bidding.

Sympathy for Chelsea flows genuinely this morning and, having seemingly clinched their place in Rome before Andrés Iniesta’s stunning strike, we can give them a little slack for casting their accusations far and wide in the heat of the night.

But, unless we are given a very good reason to believe otherwise, we must go along with the cock-up rather than the conspiracy theory of history and conclude that Ovrebo was simply a man out of his depth.

That much was obvious from his first big decision — giving Florent Malouda a free kick inches outside the box in the first half after he had been blocked by Daniel Alves a foot inside. Either it was obstruction, and an indirect free kick, or a penalty. By pointing outside the area, Ovrebo was ducking a controversial call. But thanks to him, it was just like the old times: a tumul-tuous Chelsea-Barcelona tie that Mourinho would have loved, except for the result, of course.

This was the fifth Champions League semi-final in six years for Chelsea and we thought they had contrived just about every way of failing to win the trophy: suicide by substitution under Claudio Ranieri; losing to a “phantom goal” by Liverpool; most agonisingly, John Terry slipping on his backside last year just when Roman Abramovich was about to get the party started in Moscow.

But then came along this, perhaps the most stunning turnaround of all, with Iniesta’s last-gasp goal.

Chelsea’s anguish and frustration did not begin to excuse Didier Drogba for marching out on to the pitch in his flip-flops to all but manhandle Ovrebo. He will be lucky if he is not banned from European football until Christmas. Long before then, perhaps fuelled by the old history under Mourinho, perhaps caused by all the debate about beauty and the beast, things had already started to get tense.

Drogba contrived to start a row with the Barcelona physio and every collision on the pitch provoked a bout of finger-pointing between the benches. Barcelona’s celebrations went beyond joy at reaching the final, Chelsea’s beyond the usual despair.

At the end of it all, as he digested perhaps the most crushing defeat in his time at Chelsea, Abramovich, a man used to getting his own way in every other walk of life, must wonder what he has to do to get his hands on the European Cup.

He thought he had struck gold with Guus Hiddink and, until Iniesta’s goal, so did the rest of us. It was shaping up as some story: man takes over club who cannot beat Southend United or Hull City and leads them to the Champions League final.

We were ready to salute Hiddink’s remarkable feat because in February when he arrived, Chelsea were literally happy to beat Watford.

Last night they had looked like deserved winners against a Barcelona team who were all foreplay and no penetration until injury time.

But with defeat, bitterly accepted, came a reminder that this year’s pro-gress in Europe should always have been regarded as an unexpected bonus rather than a proof of Chelsea’s might. No club who sack a manager halfway through the season (particularly his first season) can claim to have worked cleverly or strategically. How lucky, too, Chelsea had been that they could phone a friend halfway through the season in Hiddink, but it had been expecting an awful lot that he should be able to turn a faltering team into European champions.

Tony Barton did it with Aston Villa in 1982, but then he did not have to overcome a Barcelona team of this quality. And two years later he ended up at Northampton Town.

Last night Hiddink had been as good as his word in putting more accent on attack. Michael Essien’s sensational goal had been doggedly defended and Drogba, although guilty of some theatrics, had proved unplayable for the Barcelona defence.

It was a cruel way to lose, and the FA Cup Final will be little consolation. Abramovich wants the cup with big ears and it has now eluded Ranieri, Mourinho, Avram Grant, Luiz Felipe Scolari and Hiddink.

So now it is over to Carlo Ancelotti or Frank Rijkaard to land the trophy which, for Abramovich, is starting to take on the unattainable symbolism of the Holy Grail.