At various points during his illustrious Chelsea career, which spanned 11 seasons, Cech was regarded by players, pundits and supporters as the best goalkeeper in the world. It was a tag he thoroughly deserved.

Cech won every domestic and European club honour possible, and broke Peter Bonetti’s Chelsea clean sheet record. When he left Stamford Bridge in 2015, Cech had racked up a remarkable 228 shutouts in 494 appearances. With 13 major honours banked, including four Premier League titles, he stands well clear as Chelsea’s most successful ever goalkeeper.

There is no doubt about Cech’s finest hour: the 2012 Champions League final in Munich, and specifically his penalty heroics.

In extra-time, with the Blues and Bayern locked at 1-1, Cech kept out a spot-kick from Arjen Robben, his former Chelsea team-mate. It kept our European dream, so often crushed in heartbreaking fashion, alive.

In the subsequent shootout that was required to separate the sides, Didier Drogba had the crowning moment. It was Cech’s two saves, however, that handed the Ivorian the opportunity to win Chelsea the most prestigious prize of all.

With words from our goalkeeper and Bayern’s takers, we tell the tale of that history-making shootout, and Cech’s pivotal contribution to it during his finest hour as a Blue.

‘In the preparation for the game, I watched every Bayern penalty since 2007,’ Cech recalled. ‘It took a really long time to see them all and to kind of make a good picture. And I think in the end, it paid off.’

Cech is being typically modest. His painstaking research proved the difference between defeat and glory. He went the right way for all six of Bayern’s penalties that night and even showed his ability to adapt to what was unfolding in front of him.

First up for Bayern was their captain, Philipp Lahm, who had to retrieve the ball from inside a Chelsea huddle on halfway. Cech got fingertips to his strike but not quite enough contact to divert it off target. 1-0 Bayern.

Juan Mata couldn’t level with our first attempt, comfortably saved by Cech’s opposite number Manuel Neuer. Mario Gomez stepped up to try to give Bayern a two-goal advantage.

‘I put the ball down and look at Petr Cech, who’s standing there, and he was a monster,’ Gomez would later tell an Amazon documentary.

‘I put the ball down, turn around, and it was clear to me: I’m going to hit into one corner, powerfully. I have to hit it powerfully, otherwise he’ll get to it. I walk back, turn around and think, ‘No, he’ll save it’. On the way to the ball, I changed my mind and went for the other corner.

‘The mad thing about this story is afterwards. I have doping control. Petr Cech is sitting with me at doping control. He’s completely shy, reserved, and he eventually says to me, ‘Hey, what was with the penalty?’

‘I look at him and say, ‘Eh?’. Then he says to me, ‘You wanted to shoot towards the other corner first. You totally confused me. I knew you were going for the other corner’.

‘He pretty much said what happened in me. That’s brutal. That made me realise again what a great goalkeeper he is, who also reads the players and the players’ body language.’

Despite the fear Cech had instilled in him, Gomez’s penalty was well struck and found the bottom corner.

David Luiz and Frank Lampard responded with thumping spot-kicks, either side of a low effort from Neuer that just evaded Cech’s reach. The Bayern goalkeeper stepped up after Robben and others declined to do this.

Ivica Olic, the Croatian striker playing his final game for Bayern, followed Lampard.

‘It’s always a bit of luck when you always go the right way,’ admitted Cech.

‘You had Lahm and I touched, and Gomez and I was close. With Neuer, I thought he would shoot higher then suddenly no. I went always on the right side. When Olic stepped in, I knew that I had to save that one, and I believed that I would.’

That belief paid off. Cech dived to his left and clawed Olic’s shot around the post.

'I didn't want to take a penalty, but had no other choice,’ Olic said. ‘At the end I had to step forward as none of my team-mates wanted to take the responsibility. I was brave enough, but sadly Cech guessed in which corner I would shoot. My shot wasn't that bad, but Cech was great.’

Ashley Cole ensured we took full advantage of Cech’s first save. After four penalties apiece, the shootout score stood at 3-3. Bastian Schweinsteiger, who had netted the winning penalty for Bayern in their semi-final win over Real Madrid, went next. He stuttered in his run up, waiting for Cech to move. Our keeper didn’t oblige, triumphing in this game of dare by getting the feintest touch on Schweinsteiger’s spot-kick, diverting the ball onto the inside of the post and away to safety (pictured top).

‘Early in the footage of those penalties from 2007 until all the way to 2012, there was a period where Schweinsteiger was shooting penalties like that,’ recalled Cech. ‘Every time he sort of stopped, he shot to the left side of the keeper.

‘So the moment he stopped in that final, I knew that he shoots there and that’s what gave me a good chance to make the save. The preparation really paid off. But you need a bit of luck as well because nothing is 100 per cent. That day it worked.’

For Schweinsteiger, speaking to FourFourTwo magazine 12 years later, the pain lingers on. The Bavarian midfielder was the embodiment of Bayern but on the biggest stage, succumbed to Cech’s brilliance.

‘Our club president, Uli Hoeness, said it was the biggest match in his life, so it was painful being one of the guys who missed a penalty,’ he recalled.

‘We had a problem – we didn’t have a lot of players able to take the penalties, which is why Manuel Neuer was our third taker. I was ready for it. Of course you’re tired, but that’s not an excuse.

‘Petr Cech analysed my penalties very well, though, and saved it – if he hadn’t touched the ball with his fingers, it would have gone in, not hit the post. You need to accept when someone is better than you, and in that case it wasn’t Chelsea, but Petr Cech.’

Schweinsteiger’s words epitomise Cech’s Chelsea career. He was, more often than not, better than the opposition player trying to score past him. His 24 clean sheets in 2004/05 remain a Premier League record, as does his total tally of 202. In October 2006, Cech suffered a fractured skull but returned in rapid time, now wearing what would become his trademark skullcap. He continued to set the highest of standards, and on no day was his brilliance and dedication to his craft more evident than that glorious night in Munich.