KEITH DUGGAN TV VIEWTHE TELEVISION men said it was the biggest game on earth. It was certainly the latest, finishing when most Muscovites were catching the early trains to work.

All in all though, the Champions League final was a fairly auspicious return to the Motherland for Comrade Abramovich, even if they final result left something to be desired. The match was good if no classic, and England's sons did not disgrace her.

In the weeks leading up to this final, there had been much forbidding talk about the propensity to violence between the two sets of fans and the tough-guy Muscovite police. From that point of view, staging the European final in the Russian capital was a master stroke of crowd control, because it was clear that the Englanders were simply too shagged out from travelling to do anything other than sip a few refreshing Stolis and take snaps of the Kremlin. And some of the travel arrangements were flabbergasting.

"The best one I heard was a plane to Beijing and then the Trans-Siberian Railway line up here," grinned one fan.

Of course, it was all a question of perspective. Early in the evening, we saw a fleeting shot of Abramovich, the tycoon and proud owner of Chelsea. It was, of course, a big night for the ultimate local boy made good.

One presumes there must have been times when Abramovich could not afford the price of a ticket into the stadium, and it would have interesting to hear some reflection on what represented a remarkable homecoming.

We did learn that Roman grew up some 700 kilometres from Moscow, spending most of his childhood with his grandmother, who intended cycling up to join her favourite grandchild in the executive box after she had ploughed the family field and cooked dinner for her other two dozen nephews.

There was a touch of comic makeshift from the Communist era about the pitch preparations for this game. The grass was laid out as late as Tuesday night and was instantly deluged with water cannons to make it soft and playable. A burst of rainfall then arrived and left the place looking rather like the Eastern front circa 1917 so that the panic-stricken groundsman had to go around drying it with what looked like a hairdryer.

RTÉ and ITV approached the big final with characteristic differences. While the RTÉ heavyweights ruminated on tactics, ITV employed Jimmy Nesbitt, the popular Norn Iron actor, to interview Rio Ferdinand. In a weird way, it worked. Maybe Rio was a fan of Cold Feet or whatever, but he clicked with Jimmy as the pair nattered on about life and what have you on a park bench.

Rio revealed that in his early days his ambitions were rather more limited than winning a Champions League final. "I thought: 'As long as I can say I played one minute in the fourth division, I will die a happy man'." Football fans from Scunthorpe to Doncaster must have swooned on the spot at missing out on that acquisition.

On to the contest, which kicked off around midnight, local time. Just before kick-off, ITV ran a strange and confusing little feature in which a man speaking in a rather menacing and presumably Russian voice welcomed us all to the "city of steel and fire". What the hell has Sheffield got to do with anything, we wondered. But, invoking Orwell, the voice told us: "All men are equal except those who rise above us."

This may have been a covert warning about the fact Chelsea's Michael Essien is, for all his qualities, an unbelievable short-ass. Time and time again, we watched Cristiano Ronaldo rising above the helpless Chelsea man, and soon enough he headed the first goal. Needless to say, Ronaldo's celebration was an exercise in humility as he blushingly deflected all credit onto his team-mates.

Manchester United were simply brilliant after that and then, just before Roman Abramovich inquired about 11 one-way tickets on the Trans-Siberian train to the salt mines, Frank Lampard scored. As against Liverpool, big Frank pointed to the heavens in memory of his recently departed mum. And no one could begrudge him the moment. But Chelsea fans must have been wondering just how many goals Ma Lampard has in her. Several more it seemed: big Frank lamped the woodwork in the second half as Chelski tore into the Mancs.

Extra-time loomed, came and went, as did plans for a night on the tiles in Moscow. Sometime before dawn, the lads lined up for the turkey shoot.

"They know each other too well," sighed George Hamilton - who didn't name-check even one Russian composer all evening.

"So close. So close."

And on it went.