Champions League Final

I can't think of any team I have ever seen that would have been able to live with Barcelona yesterday.

They were better than the Spain side that won the World Cup (Messi lifts them to a different level and makes them far sharper in the last quarter of the field). I couldn't fall in love with their football like I could the Cruyff Dutch or the Platini/Giresse/Tigana French or the Socrates Brazilians, but what a team!

Scary how they made Man U. (Rooney excepted) look old, slow and technically inadequate. When they needed to, they just pulled them out of shape. If you're the Manchester coach there's nothing you can say to your players except that they were well beaten by a better side. They're probably the second best team in Europe, but the best is out of sight.

Barcelona 3-1 ManU

Fantastic Barca performance.
Listening to the Sky Sports 'analysts' beforehand you would have thought it was going to be a really tight game. They questioned Mascherano at centre half and the full backs Alves and Abidal, saying Giggs, Valencia, Rooney and Hernandez would wreak havoc! They also said that Barca weren't firing on all cylinders. My head was hurting listening to the gash they were talking.
You have to believe that they have watched Barca on numerous occasions, so what did they see in an average Manu team that they thought would trouble the Catalans? Barca made them look like a pub team at times. Vidic and Ferdinand were ok, and Park covered every blade of grass I think. Rooney scored a very good goal, but even he lost posession too easily. Valencia was crap, Giggs anonymous and Carrick out of his depth. Fabio and Evra couldn't cope with the marauding Barca wide men. Hernandez in time may prove to be a great player, but not with performances like that.


Mike, you think Manu are the 2nd best team in the world? I doubt very much they would beat Real Madrid over 2 legs. So, probably 3rd best for me. Celtic a close 4th.

Equating them with the Spanish team is a strange one for obvious reasons; Xavi, Iniesta, Busquets, Puyol, Pedro, Villa and Pique all play for them both! Casillas is a better goalie than Valdes. Sergio Ramos before Alves any day. Abidal before Capedevila though. Messi is the difference maker in this comparison. So I'd agree with you. Some game though!

You can't fall in love with their football? Mike, if it wasn't for Barca and, to a lesser extent, Real, I wouldn't watch another footy game ever again.

A bit of nostalgia there with the old teams you mentioned! I grew up with Celtic in '67, Manu 68, then Dutch total football. Liverpool and Forest were fantastic teams. The Milan team with Baresi, Rijkaard, Gullit and Van Basten was special. Of course the 1970 Brazilians top the lot.

Interesting to see what the reply from the English teams will be this summer. More money spent on a smorgasboard of overrated, under achieving foreign divas? Not forgetting that Barca will strengthen. Fabregas maybe? Probably not this season, but he is the heir apparent for Xavi. A new centre half to replace Puyol will be on the list. I wouldn't be surprised to see them letting David Villa go. Rossi from Villarreal has been touted. They have very high hopes for the young Dutch winger, Affelay.
With Valdano gone, Jose will be pulling all the strings in Madrid, so it will be interesting to see what happens there.

Get your hard earned dollars on Barca winning it again next year.

Some interesting stats from the game.

Possession: Barca 68% Manu 32%
Attempts on target: Barca 13 Manu 1
Attempts off target: Barca 3 Manu 2
Corners: Barca 6 Manu 0
Fouls: Barca 5 Manu 16

On a Celtic website, the question was asked if there was any other European Cup final where one of the teams didn't get corner. A lot of surprised Hoops fans, me included, didn't know it happened in our '67 game v Inter Milan. I think Inter were up the park once!
Added to this fact was the attempts on goal by both teams; Celtic 42 Inter 5! Their keeper pulled off some of the finest saves I have ever seen that day.
This proved the deathknell for the ultra defensive 'catenaccio' mindset of playing the game; if you don't lose a goal, you won't lose the game. There were times in that game when our keeper was playing as sweeper!

Below is a picture of Celtic's captain, Billy McNeill, leading out the team in Lisbon, Portugal, 25th May 1967 to play Inter. Celtic won 2-1.

Barca can be had, it's just getting the ball off them! Every system in football has a weakness.

Barca press high and their front line and to some extent, their midfield can all be bypassed by counter attacks but it must be quick. If it's not quick and decisive it's no good. United needed Berbatov up top to bring those runners into play. I'd also fancy a 6'3 Berbatov against a 5'8 Mascherano.

Alves is the weak link defensively. Rafa Benitez had it spot on moving Arbeloa to left back to counter Messi cutting inside, Liverpool marked Messi out the game but Messi's newer central role presents a new problem in the sense thats he's now a false 9, coming deep to open up space for Villa and Pedro to cut in. Michael Carrick is no match for Messi.

That Man United team has over-achieved this season, it's age and limitations painfully exposed by Barca. Was never going to be close over the 90 mins.

Scouse Patriot
Yes of course they can be beat; every team has an off day.
Arsenal fans are still gloating on beating them 2-1 at them Emirates but I'm still trying to work out how Barca didn't take seven off them that night! It was a fluke.
But if you want to talk about a strategy to beat them, and not just luck, look to the 2009-10 La Liga season when Villarreal drew 1-1 in the Camp Nou after going down 1-0 early on.
They played a 4-3-3 that night and it was amazing to see the tables turned on Barca, in that they had to get rid of the ball up the park quickly because the front three for Villarreal pressured the back four so much. The thing was, they did it the whole game and they hunted the ball down as a pack, not just an individual chasing down a defender as most teams do. The midfield of Villarreal then got to see a lot more of the ball and, as a good passing team does, were able to pull the Barca defenders all out of position with balls into the quick forwards.
I thought it was the blueprint to beat Barca. Take it to them for 90mins. Look at the some of the games they play v Espanyol. A heart and guts performance sometimes gets the underdog a reward.

The rags that pass for newspapers in the UK these days, have the owners of Manu, ManC and Chelski ready to pay tens of millions for average foreign players in the hope of buying a CL trophy. They just don't get it. You'll never win it with mercenaries of the likes of Tevez in your team. £220k a week for that petulant prick! Abramovich will look back in 10 years at the money he's spent on Chelsea and shudder. He's made a lot of people very rich without getting what he wants most of all.
As I've said before, with Valdano gone at Madrid, and Jose pulling all the strings, they are the only credible force in European soccer to stop Barca.