The first leg, you suspect, went just as Antonio Conte would have wanted it to go – apart from the bit about not playing a square ball across your penalty area to Andrés Iniesta with 15 minutes of a Champions League match remaining. But that is the problem with great tactical plans: they always rely, ultimately, on that most fallible of species: humans.
Lionel Messi’s equaliser has tipped the tie Barcelona’s way, but Chelsea can draw great encouragement from the first leg and, having operated like the away side, can play the second in much the same way (another reason, incidentally, why the away goals rules should be scrapped: the way a team set up these days is far more conditioned by resources than where the match is played).
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