Blame Moscow’s pouring rain, but don’t blame poor John Terry.

Chelsea and their Russian billionaire owner Roman Abramovich were one penalty kick away from a deserved victory in the Champions League final early this morning. But Terry, their much-respected captain, slipped at the critical moment, the penalty slid wide, and, a few minutes later, they had lost.

The sense of injustice that the better team had lost was felt all around.

As Manchester United’s most fortunate players slid deliriously across the surface in wild celbration at Luzhniki stadium, Terry was, not surprisingly inconsolable.

United players and raucous fans probably sympathised with their opponent, but so what.

It was getting on for 2 o’clock in the morning when Rio Ferdinand and Ryan Giggs were given the honour of raising aloft the coveted trophy. But after a long day’s wait, a match which shifted one way, then another, and the ”dreaded penalties” which had the entire crowd on its feet, United fans were ready to party away the last remaining hours till dawn.

Few United fans would have been able to argue – much – about a Chelsea victory. They sat nervously for much of the game after Chelsea’s equaliser from Frank Lampard just before half-time, wondering how they had squandered golden chances to add to the lead given by their Portuguese genius, Cristiano Ronaldo.

They saw a fitter and more purposeful Chelsea hit post and bar, and heard the missed ranks of blue in the stands on the other side of the ground gain in confidence.

But it was United’s Red army that sang their way through their terrace repertoire at the end of a gripping contest of two hours while their foes slid away in the unremitting downpour.

Earlier in the day, they were in full cry, the Manchester United fans, as they poured onto train carriages in Moscow’s Metro system. It might as well have been the Metropolitan Line tube en route to Wembley, for all they cared.

Muscovites sat poker-faced, read books and continued the journey as if sharing a packed carriage to Sportifiya station with Man United fans was an every-day rush-hour occurrence.

Somehow, it seemed United were destined to add this trophy to their Premier League title, in a year that marked the 50th anniversary of the Munich air crash.

To a huge ovation, Sir Bobby Charlton, a survivor of that fateful day and United’s most famous name around the world, led the victorious team up the stops of the stadium to receive the trophy.

As the Moscow heavens opened, United reigned again over Europe – but only just.