Wednesday, April 23 2008 -- Chelsea escaped out of jail on Tuesday night in the first leg of their UEFA Champions League semi-final tie with Liverpool at Anfield as an injury time own goal by John Arne Riise gave the London Blues a 1-1 draw.

That implies that Chelsea have the all important away goal against Liverpool and even a 0-0 draw at Stamford Bridge next week would be enough to see Chelsea through to the final of the UEFA Champions League this season.

Their custodian Petr Cech is confident that Chelsea would go through to the final and even says that this season the Blues would actually win the Holy Grail of European football, that is the European Cup.

The Czech international goalie said after the match:

"I am positive if we will go through, we will win it. We found ourselves 1-0 down which is something we didn't want to do. But then we put a great effort into the game and we were a bit lucky with our goal.

"But for the character and the effort we showed, we deserved it. We are only at half-time but we need to make sure the goal is crucial. Now we have the advantage of playing at home and I hope we can use it.

"We were disappointed with their goal because it was a quick free-kick and we should have done better than to allow them to play it so quickly.

"We were well organised and when we conceded the goal we wanted to make sure it was the only one.

"We started to push forward and search for the equaliser. Every save is important in the semi-final. You need to be at top form and play at the top level to go through.

"We know we can play a little bit better but overall we were happy with what we did today but the equaliser changed everything.

"Away goals can be crucial. We have been unlucky at Anfield twice but this time we got a little bit of luck.

"I was positive we would get something from the game. We were strong in our minds and kept going until the last seconds. We got a lucky goal but we were really searching for it.

"To get a bit of luck you have to deserve it. We came with a positive mood and started the game well. The last two occasions we were unlucky and didn't take our chances. But we had some luck this time."

But somehow Liverpool wouldn't let Chelsea go through the bars so easily. Manager Rafael Benitez is a marvelous tactician and you can rest assured that he will conjure up something or the other to wrestle back the advantage to Liverpool.