In the final four, the European champions could find another opponent from their winning run last season, as Manchester City travel to Bayern Munich on Wednesday with a 3-0 advantage.

While we did not give expensive chances to his team, Frank Lampard had made a strong choice but a little surprising by arranging his team in 5-4-1 with as the only purely offensive player Kai Havertz at the top.

To really ignite the stadium and shake the title holders, Chelsea needed to open the scoring.

The system was intended to allow Chelsea to press very high, Conor Galagher and N'Golo Kanté coming to prevent Toni Kroos or Luka Modric from receiving or passing the ball too easily.

He also released the two full-backs, Marc Cucurella and Reece James -- especially the latter on the right, to take advantage of Vinicius' lack of defensive help to Eduardo Camavinga --, who often came to offer solutions on the wings.

Chelsea desperately looking for goalscorers

But the Blues' attacking sequences too often resembled a handball attack-defense, where the ball went from right to left and left to right, without really worrying the Madrid rearguard much.

And the few times Chelsea have actually found themselves in a position to score, the players concerned have not had the gestures and reflexes of goalscorers.

This was particularly the case of Kanté who rushed a little to take from the left a ball that he could perhaps have controlled, in the area (11th) or Cucurella, alone at the second post, but whose strike was repelled by the beautiful exit of Thibaut Courtois (45 + 1).

Rodrygo and Madrid celebrate the latter's goal against Chelsea at Stamford Bridge on April 18, 2023 © ADRIAN DENNIS / AFP

If his players have shown desire and application, Frank Lampard may be disappointed by the very poor quality of the set pieces that should have been valuable ammunition for a team whose difficulties to score have lasted for months.

Opposite, Real has long done the minimum union offensively. But against that Chelsea, it was enough.

Benzema very discreet, for once

In the first half, there was little more than a Rodrygo strike on the outside of the post (20th) and a close-angle strike from Modric pushed away by Kepa to report.

And in the second, the Merengues hit the nail on the head on their first opportunity.

Taking advantage of Cucurella's huge back space and Trevoh Chalobah's missed interception, Rodrygo escaped on the right.

Real Madrid captain Karim Benzema against Chelsea at Stamford Bridge on April 18, 2023 © Glyn KIRK / AFP

His low centre was missed by Karim Benzema, for once very discreet in this match and replaced (71st), but Vinicius was there to put Rodrygo back in the axis who controlled and scored in the middle of four opponents (0-1, 52nd).

If the Londoners did not give up, with Lampard even finally launching his light cavalry -- Mykhailo Mudryk, Joao Felix and Raheem Sterling -- in the 67th, the match never seemed likely to tip.

Worse, in the 80th, after a beautiful breakthrough and a caviar from Federico Valverde, Rodrygo only had to push the ball into the empty goal to further highlight the chasm between the two teams (0-2, 80th) and kick off the exodus of Chelsea fans, disappointed.

© 2023 AFP