Lack of fans bites for Chelsea & Porto in lifeless Champions League quarter-final

Stamford Bridge has never been known for its raucous atmosphere, with chants of 'is this a library?' regularly heard emanating from the away end on a domestic matchday.

But Champions League nights are supposed to be different.

Much has been said, written, podcasted etc about the effects of the coronavirus pandemic on football across the globe, but in no competition has the absence of supporters been more keenly felt than in the Champions League (in Europe, at least).

The knockout rounds have always thrived on fan-generated atmosphere, with the combination of nighttime kick-offs, packed, partisan stadia, the rousing Champions League anthem and the cacophony of noise unrivalled in drawing you to the edge of your seat when the stakes are high.

Chelsea's tie against Porto in the last eight was deprived of most of those key ingredients, though, with both legs played out on neutral, alien territory in front of swathes of empty seats. Hearing 'Die Meister, Die Besten...' echo around an empty Estadio Ramon Sanchez Pizjuan, while the camera panned across the blank faces of both lineups as they stared awkwardly at their own benches and the endless banks of red plastic beyond, was - frankly - not quite the same.

While well-balanced Paris Saint-Germain and Bayern Munich served up a fanless classic, the fact there was a clear favourite in Seville meant the tie really needed a stadium full to the brim. It's impossible not to feel that the lack thereof contributed to one of the most forgettable quarter-finals in recent memory.

Porto struggled to get anywhere near the level of their heroics against Juventus in the previous round, failing to lay a glove on Chelsea until injury time in the second leg; one man who had clearly drunk his pre-match Gazprom was Mehdi Taremi, who illuminated a dour encounter with a phenomenal bicycle kick in the 93rd minute.

However, the damage had already been done a week prior. Deprived of their fortress Estadio do Dragao - where Porto are unbeaten in the Champions League this season despite facing Man City and Juventus, and haven't lost in the league since October - the Portuguese champions looked bereft of confidence after their early forays, and Chelsea capitalised on two poor defensive errors to build an unassailable two 'away' goal lead without playing well at all.

While the second leg could have made for a tense affair under the lights at Stamford Bridge, both sides lacked the impetus required to complete their respective tasks at hand; Chelsea needed a home crowd to will them over the line, while Porto's travelling support would have undoubtedly provided some fuel with the odds stacked against them.

Ultimately, the match played out in exactly the way you might expect a game to go if you strip it of almost everything that makes it an event - bar the stadium, the ball and the time of day. Of course, Chelsea and master tactician Thomas Tuchel deserve credit as they had killed the tie as a contest six days earlier, but they plumped for the easy option of sitting on their lead rather than attempting to press home their dominance, falling to a poor defeat if you take the game in isolation.

Once again, Porto toiled but were unable to create literally anything of note until Taremi took flight at the death. They only decided to show fight after the full-time whistle when the Blues' head coach Tuchel allegedly told his counterpart Sergio Conceicao to f*** off, inevitably causing veteran sh**house Pepe to blow his lid.

Watching this game out of context, you could easily have been fooled into believing it was a final group stage encounter between an already-qualified side and one destined for the Europa League having secured third place. While it was partly down to Chelsea's comfortable 'away' victory, for a match at this stage of the competition to feel bereft of tension, thrills and atmosphere just felt... wrong.

It was never likely to be a Champions League campaign as we know it this season, but this was a demonstration that the return of fans cannot come soon enough for European football's premier club competition.

For more from Krishan Davis, follow him on Twitter!