Steve Clarke, Chelsea's assistant coach, knows just how hard it was for the Blues and our fans to be beaten in the Champions League Final on penalties.

The former Chelsea player, now one of Avram Grant's right hand men, feels we failed to secure the trophy we deserved last night as the game went through extra time and into penalties.

'It was painful to lose on penalties,' explained Clarke.

'We had chances over the 120 minutes to win the game. When it comes to penalty kicks it is a bit of a lottery, one slip and your chance to win the trophy goes.

'We all feel emotionally drained.

'It's difficult to lose any game of this magnitude. To lose on penalty kicks when you're within one kick of winning is particularly painful.

'John Terry and many other players were in tears. John Terry is a strong character; he missed a kick because he slipped.

'We have great confidence in him, and the supporters love him. He'll come back a stronger person.'

With a first half Frank Lampard goal putting us right back in the fight for Europe's greatest title, Chelsea went on to control the remainder of the game, but failed to secure the essential second goal.

'We were stronger in the second half, and created more chances,' added Clarke.

'Even in extra-time we created the better chances.

'But it's not to be, sometimes in football you don't get what you deserve and tonight we didn't get what we deserved.

'Once we got back in the game we had control.

'The goal just before half time gave us the belief and the momentum to control the game in the second half and we had a lot of chances but the ball wouldn't go in for us.'

Ricardo Carvalho, who held Chelsea's defence together alongside Terry, also felt it was just not our night after the captain's unlikely slip sent his penalty shot wide of the mark.

'Ronaldo missed as well and after that Ashley Cole scored and we should have scored the last one, but JT slipped and missed,' said Carvalho.

'But he did a very good job in the game; he took one ball from off the line which should have made it 2-1, but you can do nothing about this now,' he added.