Gianluca Vialli grabbed a magnificent brace to hand Chelsea a Cup Winners' Cup lifeline after a night of pure farce in the Arctic Circle. Ruud Gullit could not believe that Polish referee Jacek Granat had allowed the tie to go ahead in the first place after the covers were lifted to reveal a saturated surface.

The Norwegian nightmare degenerated even further as first-half goals from Steinar Nilsen and Frode Fermann were no more than the part-timers deserved for running the west London aristocrats ragged.

Then a blizzard that would have left Captain Scott cowering in his tent descended, the Alfheim Stadium pitch going from wet, wet, wet into white, white, white.

Disbelieving Chelsea were run over by an avalanche of Tromso pressure, chance after chance going begging.

Five minutes from time Vialli somehow kept his feet when all about were losing theirs, skating through to find the back of the net.

But then Gullit was prevented from sending on Andy Myers for the injured Frank Leboeuf before the restart, and with Chelsea screaming their indignation Ole Martin Arst, the most guilty striker of all, finally hit the target.

Yet just when it appeared that everything was going wrong, Vialli did it again, the Italian superstar ploughing his way through to clip past Tore Andre Grenersen and put Chelsea back in control of their own destiny in a fortnight's time.

Whether or not the game should have started - the mountain of snow cleared off the covers left a quagmire of sodden sludge - Chelsea could have no excuse for a truly dreadful first-half display.

Chelsea's possession football failed to make any in-roads at all as they were forced ever backwards with the ball.

And when Tromso put them under pressure with the route-one tactics more synonymous with Wimbledon, the creaks and cracks in the Chelsea back-line split wider and wider.

Two goals inside the first 18 minutes were scant reward for the so-called no-hopers after they had threatened every time they ran at the retreating Chelsea back division.

They could have been in front after only four minutes, with only a point-blank save from Ed De Goey preventing Arst giving Tromso the lead.

But two minutes later they took the lead with a stunning strike from defender Nilsen.

Midfielder Roar Christensen strolled across the pitch 25 yards out with Chelsea failing to react.

And Nilsen, who will join Italian giants Milan next month, needed no second invitation as he ran up and rifled the ball into the back of the net.

If that was bad then worse was to follow as a shocking error by De Goey cost Chelsea dear.

Admittedly the big Dutchman had precious little protection when strapping striker Rune Lange played wide to his left for midfielder Frode Fermann.

But De Goey had the left-footed shot covered all the way only to let it bounce off his chest and into the net.

Suddenly all the horrors were coming true with Chelsea unable to produce any sort of pattern of play and the decision to leave Mark Hughes on the bench and pair Gianfranco Zola with Luca Vialli looking a major blunder by Gullit.

Polish referee Granat had ruled that the only thing that would prevent the game from being completed would be a blizzard - and that arrived during the interval.

Chelsea, who had sent on Hughes for Granville at the break, could not believe the game was allowed to continue, but it did and they should have been out of the tournament as the home side missed chance after chance.

Arst was guilty twice and then Lange - surely offside - rounded De Goey but saw his shot skate across the face of goal.

The snow was now ankle deep and getting deeper, with Gullit possibly considering sending for the St Bernards to find little Zola, and the match was reduced to the status of a farce.

Play was even held up for three minutes for the lines to be cleared of snow and Gullit did not hide his displeasure.

Perhaps if Zola had hit the target in the 67th minute after good work by Wise and Di Matteo had put him in to position the referee could have taken the opportunity to call the game off.