Despite this complete embarrassment to the occasion the second half started as if neither team had seen anything wrong with it, and in fact, thought it could stand to include a hell of a lot more. Pedro, obviously taking inspiration from his teammate – the eminently dislikable Sergio Busquets (or ‘Crumbling Biscuits’ as I prefer to call him) – decided to pull out the old Rivaldo “Oh my God I’ve been hit in the chest but the pain has inexplicably manifested itself in my face” routine and everyone bar the kit men ran onto the field to protest this startling medical irregularity and wave their arms around in peoples faces again. By this point it had gone well beyond descending into farce and could have genuinely – contrary to all common sense – have been improved by the addition of Lee Evans doing his Norman Wisdom but somehow fooling people into thinking it’s Lee Evans shtick in the center circle.
Then Pepe got sent off.
Depending on what side of the fence you’re sitting on Jose Mourinho’s one (very successful and feted) man against the world persecution complex is either endearingly arrogant or narcissistically infuriating, and considering most people in English football sit quite comfortably in the “OMG isn’t he amazing? And look how wonderful he looks in that coat!” garden, the anti-brigade are often quick to get riled up by the man. But even the most ardently anti-Jose observer must surely find the startling regularity at which his players seem to get sent off against Barcelona a perplexing occurrence. After the aforementioned medical marvel Sergio ‘Crumbling Biscuits’ and his amazing face pain come ‘peek-a-boo’ antics against Inter last year, it’s only natural that any manager would’ve raised his concerns over retaining 11 against 11 in future encounters. Can anyone really see Ferguson or Wenger not tub thumping the issue if they’d had a player dismissed in the last five successive matches, seven in all?
In true Ferguson style, Jose had presumably assumed his broaching of the subject would afford his teams a degree of protection from self aware referees, but instead they seem to have had the opposite effect, and after Pepe had been unjustly dispatched (though being a nasty player/looking like an evil Kiwi fruit probably counted against him) Jose bypassed the arm waving and took the tried and trusted route of speaking slower and louder in English to the perplexed foreign officials and was promptly dispatched himself, to sit in a cage and pout angrily whenever the camera came near him.
From then on his rope a dope tactics were futile and the game, by extension, was beyond Madrid. Thankfully however, buoyed and assured by their now customary player advantage, Barcelona were free to stop waving their arms around in front of people’s faces (and their own) and play some kind of football which, blessedly, resulted in the ever mercurial Lionel Messi scoring one of those goals that should finally convert the last in the ever dwindling number of people still trying desperately to claim Ronaldo is the superior player. It was lovely to watch, but – like the cherry on top of a particularly moldy piece of salmonella chicken – couldn’t rescue the game from what it was, which was, by all accounts, a horrible and ugly advertisement for world football. While Messi continued to confirm his glittering reputation, smudges may have appeared, for many, on Barcelona’s.
The last time Manchester United met Barca, in the Rome final of 2009, Guillem Balague (though it could feasibly have been Gabriele Marcotti, I always get them mixed up, like Ronaldinho and Trisha) pitted it as all that was wrong with the corporate, materialistic global game against all that was right and beautiful with it, right down to their contrasting shirt sponsors. Yesterday he spent his evening fiercely defending the arm waving, face-clutching gamesmanship of the Spanish Champions (and their opponents) to a vanguard of angry, self-righteous tweeters.
Despite all their undoubted elegance and beauty with the ball, the once small movement decrying Barcelona as anything but the bastions of the beautiful has started growing, albeit only a little. This time around (assuming both sides don’t implode cataclysmically in their second legs) there may well be a fair few converts to the evil, corporate, materialistic side of the football beast. The Champions elect and diminutive demi-gods have certainly gone ever so slightly down in my estimation. And I say that with my hand on my heart. Or is it my face? No, heart, no, wait, which is which again?
The article was written by Oscar Pye-Jeary for FootballFancast.com. Make sure to check out the latest news, blogs and podcasts at FFC – ed.
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This week it is LFC fan and tennis player Caroline Wozniacki!
nothing found in the 2nd page>?
Sorry James, Has been corrected now.