Written by Oscar Pye-Jeary
This is the end, beautiful friend – And now, the end is here, and so we’ve faced the final curtain. Unless of course you find the allure of Millwall vs Swindon too strong to resist. In which case you couldn’t be blamed, and may well be vindicated as in all honesty it’s likely to be a much more entertaining game than this end of season showpiece was, which was only just about legitimately such a thing because there was a piece to show at the end of it. The new razzmatazz of a weekend match day, intended not just to booster the accessibility for fans but also to garner a greater world wide audience, was undercut slightly by the events on the pitch, which weren’t that far removed from the spectacle of watching some blue and black paint dry slowly over some red and white paint. Or perhaps the other way around, given the actual possession trend of the game, but then assuming that the blue and black paint resisted the red and white from actually settling, and then somehow forced it to peel off completely, possibly due to heat, or the incorrect application of an undercoat, or the wrong type of paint. All of which of course, is just a very good example of why I should stop using metaphors.
Assumption is the mother of all ….truths – The share of the global audience situated in England were given the mouthwatering choice of Gullit, Souness & Redknapp on Sky, or Andy Townsend and Diddy Hamman on iTV. Despite the prospect of hearing the phrase “They didn’t do as well as they dreamed of doing did they Diddy?” at some point in proceedings, or indeed the chance of briefly imagining what it might sound like if Andy Townsend worked on MTV Base (which may well in fact not actually exist anymore), the choice was an easy one, tempered only slightly by the prospect of being “literally’d” to death by Redknapp over on Satellite. At some point within the first 20 minutes of the build up coverage the pundits had decided amongst themselves that Jose Mourinho was definitely going to be at Real Madrid next season. Whilst this is almost undoubtedly true – and all but confirmed later on in proceedings – anyone without a deep understanding of the backroom workings of football would have been left bemused at how generally accepted this hypothesis became throughout the program. Initially they simply speculated pitchside whilst attempting to dodge the overly affectionate attentions of the Bernabeu sprinkler system; “..and of course he could possibly be here next season Jamie?” and then about 10 minutes later, seemingly fuelled entirely by the proof of their own speculation – and possibly by Jamie’s willingness to take his own literally’s literally – they’d decided that he definitely would be, and spent the rest of the show openly referring to him as the Real Madrid manager, pondering that “…he won’t want to lose this groundsman” and that “there’s going to be a lot more expectation to win it again there” before he’d even won it here.
Back to the Future II – After the marvelous spectacle of some twirly sheety things twirling around for a bit, we were off into the action after Bayern revealed themselves to be endorsing the Back to the Future approach favored by Chelsea in playing their last game of the 09/10 season in their 10/11 strip. Inspired clearly by the free flowing sexy football attacking ethos of Sunderland, the red and white stripes dominated the early possession, but (in a far more accurate homage to the Black Cats) failed to do almost anything useful with it at all as the template for the evening was set and Inter proceeded to pick them off calculatedly on the counter.
Read the rest of Oscar’s article at Football Fancast.com
