As the bells and sore heads rang out across Munich on Sunday morning and Chelsea prepared to make a triumphant return home, owner Roman Abramovich was keeping his thoughts to himself.
Even the capture of the Champions League, the prize Abramovich has cherished most since he made the journey from the Russian territory of Chukotka to buy Chelsea in July 2003, could not prompt him to break his silence.
Abramovich was able to touch that precious piece of silverware he has pursued with such zeal and even allowed himself to be caught on camera tapping a foot, clapping and singing along with the Chelsea anthems that echoed around the Allianz Arena after their victory on penalties against Bayern Munich.
Apart from congratulating his players and hoping for further successes, Abramovich gave little of his emotions away and the greatest interim manager of all time, Roberto Di Matteo, flatly declined to discuss what message the man he calls "The Boss" had given him after the game.
The future of
Chelsea manager Roberto Di Matteo (left) and striker Didier Drogba is
still uncertain despite their success in the FA Cup and the Champions
League. Photo: Getty
And the men who might just - and it is only just because the suspicion always remains that Abramovich makes decisions that usually remain final - get him thinking are Di Matteo and Didier Drogba.
When the celebrations are concluded and Chelsea are somehow dragged back to reality after the dream sequences played out in Barcelona and Bavaria - sequences in which the English even beat the Germans on penalties - Abramovich must decide on their futures.
When Abramovich sacked his personal managerial pet project Andre Villas-Boas and put his assistant Di Matteo in charge for the last three months of the season, the notion that the campaign would end with Chelsea winning the FA Cup and the Champions League was fanciful at best.
And yet Chelsea can now parade both - and Abramovich must surely have spent the early hours of Sunday contemplating his next move. How can he say "thank you and goodbye" to a manager and player who proved in Munich what they can deliver for him?
Has winning the Champions League burnished Di Matteo enough of the gloss of glamour to be given the job permanently? Bayern coach Jupp Heynckes, gracious in defeat, immediately handed the Italian an imaginary three-year contract. Abramovich appears more reluctant to take the plunge.
Chelsea's disappointing Premier League placing of sixth meant their immediate Champions League future rode on Saturday night in Munich. With the greatest victory in Chelsea's history secured, can Abramovich seriously deny Di Matteo his opportunity?
History tells us he can. It tells us Abramovich does not do sentiment when it comes to Chelsea business and he may deliver the greatest example of all to prove his single-mindedness.
Di Matteo, who even let his own stone-faced mask slip as he spoke in the early hours of Sunday morning, has presented a compelling case. He has renewed fractured team spirit, revived players routinely referred to as Chelsea's "old guard" and produced two clear, and more importantly successful, strategies against Barcelona and Bayern. Of course good fortune was involved but it invariably is and the prizes were handed out for victory, not artistic merit.
It is hard to see how Di Matteo could have done more. If he is not appointed Chelsea's permanent manager now, then it is hard to see when he ever will be.
And what of the great drama queen and talisman Drogba? The serial scorer in cup finals fully redeemed himself after his sending off in the 2008 Champions League final defeat by Manchester United in Moscow with Chelsea's late equaliser in Munich, and then the ice-cold dispatch of the decisive penalty?
Drogba happily laughed off Heynckes's suggestion that he is a great actor - but in Munich he played the part of hero, villain and then superhero again and has been the central figure in Chelsea's Champions League storyline.
Chelsea are refusing to agree to his demands for a two-year contract so there is every chance that the final penalty could be his farewell. What a way to go and what a way to demonstrate on the biggest stage that he is a talent they only consider losing after a great deal of consideration.
Abramovich and his cohorts may look to 34-year-old Drogba's age, his patchy Premier League form and a desire to move towards a new, hungrier young team - but the Champions League has been the Ivorian's proving ground and was once more in the Allianz Arena.
He was the scorer of that crucial lone goal against Barcelona in the semi-final first leg at Stamford Bridge and the man Frank Lampard calls "my hero" was at it again with a thunderous late header to level Thomas Mueller's header for Bayern.
And then, with a script written for the final, he stepped forward to score the penalty that made Chelsea champions of Europe. Drogba also provided the winning goal against Liverpool in the FA Cup final at Wembley for good measure.
He followed this moment of glory with something that was almost Didier Drogba in microcosm. As he waved his Chelsea shirt above his head and took the adulation in front of their supporters, he overdid it - or overdidn't depending on your point of view - and ended up stumbling away as if carrying an injury.
Drogba may play to the gallery but what cannot be denied is that he still shapes the big games. It is a priceless commodity and one that surely cannot be cast aside lightly, even by someone with a decision-making process as cold-blooded as Abramovich's.
He has been linked with a move to China and publicly denied an association with Barcelona, although it is easy to see him as a potent "Plan B" among the Catalan's passing beauty. He will have alerted more suitors on Saturday and this is a decision Chelsea must weigh up, or even revisit, in coming days.
Chelsea will rightly celebrate a magnificent victory, a Champions League win that can expunge bitter memories. They can finally move on from Luis Garcia's "ghost goal" in the semi-final at Liverpool in 2005, John Terry's slip as he took his penalty in Moscow three years later and the fury of semi-final exit against Barcelona in 2009 after Andres Iniesta's injury-time goal at Stamford Bridge was followed by bitter recriminations about the refereeing prowess of Norwegian Tom Henning Ovrebo.
There was no need for hard luck stories as Chelsea left Germany to continue the celebrations in London. Now the waiting begins for Abramovich to reveal whether Di Matteo and Drogba will be on the next leg of the journey.
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