#3 Monaco 5-3 Chelsea – 2003-04 Semi-final
A new giant emerged in the English game in the 2003-04 season as Roman Abramovich’s billions made Chelsea an immediate threat in the Premier League as well as the Champions League.
Claudio Ranieri’sside had topped their Champions League group and had marched on to the semi-finals, eliminating Stuttgart and bitter rivals Arsenal along the way, and in a depleted semi-final roster involving Porto and Deportivo La Coruna, The Blues were considered as the favourites for the continental crown.
That is until they ran into Didier Deschamps' Monaco. Monaco had been largely responsible for opening up the field, eliminating mighty Real Madrid in the quarter-finals – but were still considered underdogs to a Chelsea side that featured the likes of Hernan Crespo, Juan Sebastian Veron and Eidur Gudjohnsen.
Croatian Dado Prso gave Monaco the lead in the first leg held at the Stade Louis II, but Crespo levelled things up five minutes later. Monaco were reduced to ten men eight minutes into the second half when Akis Zikos was sent off and Chelsea seemed to be salivating at the prospect of gaining the advantage in the tie.
But Les Monegasques upped the ante and very soon it felt like it was Chelsea and not Monaco who were playing with ten men. Fernando Morientes and Shabani Nonda scored two goals in five minutes and the ten men Principality side had a 3-1 lead to take to the return leg at the Bridge.
Chelsea knew that a 2-0 victory in the second leg would send them to a first ever European Cup final and they reached that scoreline within the first 45 minutes in London through Jesper Gronkjaer and Frank Lampard, but Monaco pulled one back in first-half injury time through Hugo Ibarra.
Deschamps’ men suffocated Chelsea in the second half and when Morientes scored his second goal of the tie to level the scores, Chelsea needed three more goals in under half an hour. They couldn’t manage a single one and Monaco went on to reach their first Champions League final.
The final would see Porto thrash them 3-0 which led to Abramovich hiring the Porto manager Jose Mourinho to manage Chelsea and start off the golden period in the London side’s history.
