WELL, we did not really expect him to lose did we? The Special One has still got it. Jose Mourinho came back to the ground which he turned into a fortress as Chelsea boss and blew the walls down.
A goalless draw would have been enough to send Inter through to the quarter-finals.
Mourinho had claimed in his Press conference that beating Chelsea was not the issue for him and the important thing was Inter making the quarter-finals.
But then he argued the Blues should never have axed him as boss - a point owner Roman Abramovich might be mulling over this morning as his Champions League dream lies in tatters for another season.
Whatever Mourinho's motivation for winning, he wanted it very badly indeed.
With a 2-1 lead from the first leg, Inter had the advantage.
Yet Chelsea were confident of turning the tie round, knowing a 1-0 victory would be enough.
They had to go with their third-choice goalkeeper, Ross Turnbull, because of injuries to Petr Cech and Hilario.
And they were, of course, without broken ankle victim Ashley Cole.
Judging by the speed with which Cole moved through the Press room before kick-off, though, it will not be long before he is back in action - which is good news for club and country.
It was fairly spikey early on, with Eto'o going down after a collision with John Obi Mikel's forearm and various altercations going on around the pitch.
Meanwhile, Michael Ballack was not far away with a 25-yard effort which went inches wide.
This Inter team was like Mourinho's Chelsea of old - strong in the challenge, giving little away and happy to mix it while getting up and down the field in numbers.
Mourinho was prowling his technical area manically, directing operations and complaining at Drogba roughing up his defenders.
The Inter chief was raging on 17 minutes when Goran Pandev was given offside as he broke away on goal.
He went looking for a screen to see a replay and, though he could not find one, his belief that Inter had been robbed seemed vindicated from the TV pictures.
It was scrappy stuff. But Drogba was proving a handful and, when the ball fell to him on the edge of the area, he released a screamer blocked by Brazilian defender Maicon.
Maicon is a brute of a man and was soon rampaging up the other end, with Yuri Zhirkov failing to get in a challenge.
As the cross came in, it cleared home skipper John Terry. That seemed to surprise Eto'o at the far post and his downward header bounced into the ground and over the bar.
It was a let-off for Chelsea, who were not looking comfortable.
Milito was crowded out on the edge of the six-yard box before he could get a shot in and Drogba was having to do an awful lot of work in his own box, heading away corners and getting in tackles.
Yet there was no better first-half tackle than Walter Samuel's, after Chelsea's man-of-the- moment Florent Malouda tricked his way past Lucio and looked set to score before the Argentinian's intervention.
It was all Chelsea now and Motta cleared Nicolas Anelka's effort off the line before the Blues had two penalty shouts.
First Lucio pulled back Branislav Ivanovic and then Samuel rugby-tackled Drogba to the ground and somehow got away with it - much to the bemusement of Carlo Ancelotti.
Eto'o could have finished it off for Inter but up to then was not having a good night.
When he got clear of the struggling Zhirkov, he seemed set to score.
Then, for no apparent reason, he hesitated and momentarily lost control, allowing Turnbull to smother.
The Inter bench was going mad. It was a great chance and they nearly paid double. Malouda went down the left and his shot almost sneaked under Julio Cesar by the near post.
There was some quality defending going on and Zhirkov redeemed himself to foil Pandev with a perfect last-ditch tackle.
Inter went close again, after Terry lost possession and Wesley Sneijder played in Milito, who snatched his left-foot effort wide. Then Motta put a header over the top from Sneijder's free-kick.
These were anxious moments for Chelsea and then suddenly, 11 minutes from time, it was all over.
Eto'o collected a fine ball from Sneijder, got away from Ivanovic and tucked his right-foot shot beyond Turnbull into the corner.
Drogba was then sent off and that completed a depressing night for the Londoners and their boss.
CARLO ANCELOTTI admitted that Champions League failure has put him under pressure to win the Premier League title. The Chelsea manager saw his team crash out of Europe to Jose Mourinho's Inter Milan last night - the first time they club has failed to reach the quarter-finals in four years.
But Italian Ancelotti refused to blame the referee's failure to give his side a penalty after two big shouts and admitted he must now win a major trophy.
Chelsea are two points behind Manchester United in the Prem but have a game in hand.
And they are in the FA Cup semi-finals where Aston Villa await.
Ancelotti though, conceded that last night's loss to former Chelsea boss Mourinho was a big blow.
He said: "Now we have two important competitions. We're at the top of the list and want to win.
"We'll have more pressure on the next few games but we must be strong and have good control of our emotions.
"Maybe this defeat could be a very good motivation for the next few games.
"My regret is we didn't play as well as we did in the first leg this evening.
"But I've worked for a long time in this environment and I know exactly what expectations are.
"It's normal that a manager is going to come under pressure if he loses a few matches."
Inter's Samuel Eto'o scored the winning goal at Stamford Bridge to complete a 3-1 victory on aggregate for the Serie A champions.
Blues striker Didier Drogba was also sent off for stamping on Thiago Motta after the Inter midfielder clearly fouled him in the area.
Ancelotti insisted he did not see the Drogba incident but refused to single out German referee Wolfgang Stark for not awarding Chelsea at least on spot-kick.
He said: "I always say that if the referee doesn't whistle... so I don't want to comment on his work, on the job of the referee. I didn't see the red card incident, so I don't know what happened in the box."
Ancelotti was a disconsolate figure and despite recording an historic win, refused to gloat about his old club.
The Portuguese coach pointed to Chelsea's history of being the nearly men of the Champions League after appearing in five semi-finals and one final - but never winning the competition.
Mourinho's Chelsea lost to Liverpool in 2005 after a controversial Luis Garcia goal before losing to the Anfield outfit on penalties in 2007.
They went out to Barcelona after numerous penalty shouts in the semis last season and were denied in a shootout against Manchester United in 2008.
Mourinho said: "I think that the team that lost a semi-final with a goal that was not a goal, lost a semi-final on penalties, lost a final on penalties, lost a semi-final in a game that they should have won 3-0 with three penalties.
"This is the story of this club and the story of these players. This is history, one of frustration.
"Today they had the ambition of going through and were frustrated today because they felt immediately that Inter were the best team.
"I'm not saying Inter are better than them. I'm saying that, today, Inter were much better than Chelsea and that brought frustration to the players, great professionals and great people.
"My people will always be my people. But today I was the enemy. And the enemy won. That's life."
STEVEN GERRARD is free to face Manchester United on Sunday after escaping an FA ban - again!Liverpool's skipper was sweating over a possible three-game suspension for flooring Portsmouth's Michael Brown in Monday's 4-1 win.
Ref Stuart Attwell lectured the England star at the time but Gerrard could still have faced a ban if the official had not seen the clash.
But Attwell told FA chiefs he was warning Gerrard for his actions - meaning no further punishment will be meted out.
FA guidelines do not allow them to punish players retrospectively if the referee has seen and dealt with the alleged offence.
It is the second Monday running Gerrard has escaped punishment for on-field controversy after appearing to make a V-sign at ref Andre Marriner during Liverpool's the 1-0 defeat at Wigan.
Boss Rafa Benitez insisted after the Portsmouth game he thought Gerrard would not be charged, claiming: "I think it was nothing."
Alberto Aquilani revealed that scoring his first Liverpool goal against Portsmouth was a dream come true.
The £20million Italian said: "When I arrived, I said I wanted to score in front of the Kop - and I'm really happy to have done so.
"I've had to wait a long time and it has been a difficult season, arriving with an injury. My chance came against Portsmouth and that was my best game for Liverpool."
