Chelsea fan Anna Madden’s anxious wait for the Blues to lift the trophy in '21 was the winning entry in our Champions Journalist fan reporter

Anxiety affects many people. Anxiety made me unable to attend classes. For years, I couldn’t attend matches at the Bridge, because I couldn’t handle big crowds! But when I look back, I don’t remember being more anxious than I was on the week of 29 May 2021. Now, I am astutely aware of how that sounds. Perhaps the memories that came after have clouded my judgement. So often, things seemed like I had no control over them, that’s what made life so terrifying.

But this week was entirely different. No matter what I did, I wouldn’t be able to change how that night would end. I could do my pre-match rituals, but that was it. I asked myself, would not doing those rituals change anything? Ironically, that thought filled me with the same anxiety I used to feel before going into school. Looking back, it’s funny, especially when you consider that the scenarios were not remotely comparable.

So, of course, I stuck with what I did before every match. I kissed the badge of the oldest shirt I had. I know it’s not exactly a novel concept, and it may not seem important to most, but it is so implicitly a part of my match day routine, that it would’ve been crazy to disregard it.

My anxiety didn’t fade when the match began. I’d be lying if I said I was calm for even a millisecond throughout it. There are moments, however, that nearly two years on, still make my heart drop, even despite knowing the outcome. It was going a mile a minute when Azpi made an unbelievable clearance in the 67th minute. I was almost brought to tears when the seven minutes of added time were announced. The world seemed to stop when Mahrez had a shot in the closing moments of the match.

Then, the whistle blew. The match was over! Chelsea were Champions of Europe once more! I watched my team celebrate the victory in Porto, as I did the same from over a thousand miles away. I watched my captain lift the trophy; I couldn’t think of anyone more deserving than Azpilicueta! I went to bed later that night, happier than I’d been in a long time. I figured that maybe the anxiety I felt wasn’t so bad, not when this was the outcome.