He will know how close he was here. To a first trophy in his second coming as Chelsea manager; to getting an early one in on Pep Guardiola.
There is history here, animosity, too. It runs deeper than Pep Guardiola versus Jose Mourinho. Chelsea killed Bayern Munich's dream at their home final in 2012. That isn't forgotten in a hurry.
As one would expect from teams packed with Brazilians and Germans, the penalties were exceptional. England held its end up surprisingly well, too.
Ashley Cole was fortunate to score off the inside of a post, Cech got a hand to the penalty of Swiss international Xherdan Shaqiri.
The rest were close to perfect: David Luiz, Oscar and Frank Lampard for Chelsea, Jerome Boateng, Toni Kroos, Philipp Lahm and Franck Ribery for Bayern Munich. And with the score at 5-4 to the European champions, Romelu Lukaku stepped up to keep Chelsea in the game.
He failed, that is the politest way to put it. His effort was soft and lacking in confidence, Munich goalkeeper Manuel Neuer guessed right and got much of his body behind the shot.
The man who took Chelsea's opener is unrecognisable as the problem child whose £50million transfer has suited him like a lead weight.
From the start, Chelsea worried Munich's back line and Guardiola's deployment of Kroos as a forward sweeper in what was, at times, a five-man defence was an indication of the respect for that threat.
Torres will have been doing a lot of thinking this week, too. There was the team sheet at Manchester United that did not include his name, or that of any front-line goalscorer at the club. Then in came a true rival in Samuel Eto'o. Yet if Torres had a point to prove to Mourinho, he did so after just eight minutes.
Eden Hazard carried the ball through the centre and in doing so left Rafinha, the right back, in his wake. The Brazilian made some panicky attempts at matching his stride, but to no avail.
Hazard fed Andre Schurrle and his cross was met first-time by Torres with a simply ferocious shot that beat Neuer in Bayern's goal. It was a brilliant start, a brilliant finish — Mourinho's Chelsea at their best.
Yet Chelsea could not possibly have it their own way for long against this level of opposition and so it proved. Stung by the early deficit, Munich pressed and Ribery was soon showing why he was crowned UEFA's Footballer of the Year for 2012-13.
It was a trademark Ribery approach that did the damage, receiving the ball high on the left, he cut inside and unleashed a shot that defeated Cech at his near post.
Then, the moment that tilted the balance of power. Ramires, already booked for a trip on Ribery, was shown a second yellow card for a two-footed tackle on substitute Mario Gotze.
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