Mehdi Taremi bicycle kick against Chelsea voted UEFA Champions League Goal of the Season

Memories can be shockingly short in football and it certainly feels a lot longer than just two months ago that we won the Champions League, but win it we did and in rather unerring fashion, even — in stark contrast with 2012’s miraculous run.

Manchester City, Real Madrid, Atlético Madrid, and FC Porto: game by game, leg by leg they all fell by the wayside. Chelsea didn’t score too many goals, but we conceded even fewer — just two in the group stage and just two in the knockout rounds. Illustrating just how hard Chelsea were to break down was the fact that both of the goals conceded in the knockout rounds would end up being nominated for Champions League Goal of the Season.

And one of those would end up with the award as well, as revealed by UEFA on Thursday. Take a bow, Mehdi Taremi.

Fortunately, Taremi’s goal was just consolation for Porto in the dying moments of our quarterfinal second leg (though you wouldn’t be able to judge that from Édouard Mendy’s reaction) — unlike Olivier Giroud’s also-nominated bicycle kick, which was the only goal of our Round of 16 first leg against Atlético Madrid. Alas, Oli did not win this award, but presumably he’d much rather have Big Ears anyway.