British Prime Minister David
Cameron savored Chelsea's win over German club Bayern Munich in
the Champions League final on Sunday after watching the deciding
penalty shootout with German Chancellor Angela Merkel at a
summit in the United States.
"It's not often you get the opportunity to watch a penalty
shootout between an English team and a German team and watch the
English team win," Cameron told reporters in Chicago before a
NATO summit.
"There are many great privileges in this job but to be able
to do that with the German chancellor was a great moment - but
we did hug and make up afterwards," he said.
Cameron was photographed with his arms thrust aloft in
triumph while watching Saturday's final on television with other
world leaders during a break in the Group of Eight summit at the
U.S. presidential retreat at Camp David, Maryland, on Saturday.
In the photo Cameron was next to U.S. President Barack
Obama, with his mouth open in amazement, and Merkel, who looked
disappointed.
Chelsea became the European champion when Didier Drogba made
the last kick of the shootout in Germany after the match ended
in a 1-1 stalemate after extra time.
It was sweet revenge for Cameron after he and Merkel watched
part of Germany's 4-1 thrashing of England at the 2010 World Cup
on television at a Group of 20 summit in Toronto.
Cameron said he had to explain some of the finer points of
Saturday's penalty shootout to Obama "and he was beginning to
catch up on the rules by the time it was over."
"You've got the American president not fully understanding
the rules of football, or soccer as he would call it, a very
despondent German chancellor and, of course, another happy man
in the room, which was the Russian prime minister [Dmitry
Medvedev]," he said.
Chelsea's success was built on the millions invested in the
club in the past nine years by Russian billionaire Roman
Abramovich.
Cameron said the leaders had watched a bit of the game and
then he had insisted they get back to their discussion of
weighty global matters, including the euro zone debt crisis.
"I got everyone back in the room but when the penalty
shootout started Angela Merkel drifted away and after trying to
focus minds on what we were talking about I drifted away too,
obviously suspecting that an England-Germany penalty shootout
was going to be another difficult night for me," he said.
"That is why you see me being quite so elated when Drogba
put that great penalty in," he said.
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