IN THE yellow corner: power. In the blue and purple one: art. These were the stereotypes assigned to the protagonists in Catalonia as Chelsea turned to their strong men to negate Barcelona’s sky-lighting brilliance. John Terry, Frank Lampard and Didier Drogba would dispute this narrow designation, but there is honour in strength and physicality, so long as it stops short of violence.

Chelsea’s midfield might has scrambled many a mind down the years. Before last year’s Champions League final, Alex Ferguson acknowledged the bulldozing power of Lampard, Michael Ballack and Essien. At Wembley this spring, Arsene Wenger left out Andrey Arshavin and Samir Nasri in an FA Cup semi-final in favour of a more muscular starting XI. Few conquer Chelsea toe-to-toe.

To load up the testosterone here, Guus Hiddink omitted the firefly Salomon Kalou in favour of an extra central midfielder, John Mikel Obi, in the hope Barca’s “Three Amigos” would wilt in the heat of compression.

“Big clashes between big players” was Hiddink’s battle cry, and there are few bigger than Drogba, who, with the Dutchman’s arrival in place of Luiz Felipe Scolari, was like a limp puppet suddenly enlivened by 10,000 volts. The switch in his psyche is not hard to locate. You do what Jose Mourinho did: first, pick him automatically, tell him what a warrior he is, how doomed you and the team would be without his selfless ram-raiding.

With the star’s ego oiled, Hiddink will look to reap the dividend on nights like these. With Nicolas Anelka and Kalou on the bench, and Florent Malouda playing deeper to assist the makeshift left-back, Jose Bosingwa, Drogba was cast as the brave frontiersman, battling Barca’s central defenders alone. A quarter of an hour in, after five minutes of Barcelona pressure, he tried to flick on a Petr Cech goal-kick with his head and threw his arms about tetchily when he saw that no midfielder had joined him in support.

Chelsea’s tactic was the midfield swarm and the frantic defensive block, laced with counter-attacking. These are the nights when hiring an A-list, Champions League winning coach with a fine World Cup record bears fruit.

Unlike Scolari, who attempted wholesale reinvention, Hiddink revived virtues that were already there, and is not too much of a carpet-football purist to go route one. Had they seen any less of the ball in the first-half, though, Hiddink’s men might have joined us in the stands to spectate. So preoccupied were they with territorial screening they forgot to acquire and keep the ball, except in spurts. Mikel was profligate: a reflection, probably, of Hiddink’s recent loss of faith in him, and the elevation of Ballack to his starting role. It is a truism of elite sport that conviction cannot be switched on and off.

Mikel’s temporary boss had promised not to resort to roughhouse methods to thwart Barca’s gift for geometry, but under duress his players found themselves swinging a boot at the recently departed. Bosingwa, who had the advantage of being able to deploy his right-foot whenever Messi cut inside, was the first to cut down the world’s most exciting player. Alex was the first to be booked for chopping him down. Did you win the sweepstake? Then Ballack went into the book for upending Thierry Henry.

Seven minutes before the interval, Drogba exploited a defensive error by Gerard Pique but drove his shot at Victor Valdes. It was Chelsea’s first meaningful attack. Moments earlier Drogba had served up one of those comedy sketches that only he thinks he can get away with. When Daniel Alves hit the deck and stayed there, the great Ivorian thespian remonstrated with him on the ground, and tried to yank him back up, as if to feign discomfort were an offence against human nature.

Hiddink’s half-time message must have been that Chelsea were pushing their luck. Sooner or later one of the Barca chances would go in. More ambition, more precision was required. Soon Ballack headed just over from a Drogba free-kick. Containment is not a 90-minute art. Sooner or later you have to give the other mob a fright, to stop them regarding you as foil for their creativity.

Barcelona’s reputation preceded them. The blizzard of goals, the new Dream Team rhetoric, penetrated Chelsea’s thinking. It gave new life to the tenacity and stubbornness Jose Mourinho imbued. John Terry enjoyed this test of his manhood, until Eto’o eluded him 20 minutes into the second-half to create another chance. Chelsea were back to playing without the ball. Soon they were functioning without Lampard too, as Juliano Belletti came on to pile a few more sandbags.

Power intimidates, but not as much as artistry. No Premier League team could force Chelsea into this hedgehog shape. Here was a team created to entertain clashing with one set up to endure.

• Guardian Service