“I've been on that bench — I know what it means”
Chelsea's old boy watched from the QPR goal as the visitors' substitutes turned a tense derby in the closing half-hour.
Abiola Hill spent ten years at Chelsea and never quite made the shirt his own. On Tuesday night he stood in the QPR goal, watching the club he grew up in send on two substitutes who would decide the tie. Lionel Messi had already struck inside the first minute, and Milan Đurđević's finish on 55 lifted Stan Bowles Park into noise. Then Chelsea turned to the bench.
Ibrahim Ramadan scored on 78; Júnior, on three minutes later, added the third and made the other. "The lads who came on changed it," Hill said afterwards. "I've been on that bench — I know what it means." For QPR, who lost Carlos Henrique to a late change just after his assist for Đurđević, the wait goes on.