About that Barcelona/Manchester United final
5 Comments Published by Cardillo on May 27, 2009 at 8:15 PM.
"Looks like I picked the wrong day to stop sniffing glue." -- Airplane!
So...Barcelona pretty much chumpatized Manchester United Wednesday in Rome, eh?
Sure the scored ended only 2-0, officially, but it probably was close to 2 to -10 than anything else. It was a testament to how well Barcelona played that they made Manchester United look like the Red Devils would have were they playing a non-league side in the FA Cup.
That, right there, is greatness.
You could say, as the starting quote implies, that United played poorly, but it was more a matter that Barcelona were that good.
Barcelona's passing, the tic-toc, tic-toc, seemed to hypnotize United with each successive completion. It was like each completed pass sucked the life out of Sir Alex Ferguson's men with each passing second. Frankly, it's a mild shock that the final possession stats were only 51 percent to 49 percent in favor of Barcelona.
The way the game unfurled was almost surreal. It set up on a platter for Manchester United, with Ronaldo's dipping freekick mishandled by Victor Valdes. Yet nobody was there to cash in the rebound, as fate clearly shined on the side of Catalonia.
And how about Andres Iniesta first touch, rushing up the field and threading a perfect pass to Sammy Eto'o, who scored at what appeared to be an impossible angle. (Note, Nemanja Vidic's pants are still somewhere on the Stadio Olimpico turf.)
From there Barcelona kept the slow simmer, as United couldn't do anything.
Xavi's perfect lofted pass to Lionel Messi capped it. Messi, who was good in the match, not great, threw his whole body at the ball and headed it clean by Edwin van der Sar (maybe United's only positive player Wednesday) and sealed it. Messi is probably going win all the Player of the Year awards, but I'd like to start some sort of joint-campaign for Xavi and Iniesta.
For my money, the player of the match was Carlos Puyol for playing out of position at right back and taking Ronaldo completely out of the match. Again, perhaps fortune shined on Barca, since Puyol's more defensive mindset worked out instead of the more aggressive Dani Alves.
Really, I wish there was more to say about this match but it was pretty clear cut. Maybe there's a part of me that's disappointed that the actual match didn't live up to the lofty expectations in my mind. This is mostly because of Barca's utter dominance and United's surprising and disappointing capitulation. Really, the whole time it lasted at 1-0 there was still no drama.
You could single out Wayne Rooney's M.I.A. performance, but then you could for just about every United player. That said, the Red Devils weren't the only squad humbled by Barcelona this year, in what was truly a magical season for the Catalans. Maybe we should have seen this coming when Iniesta's magical goal at the death against Chelsea.
It was Barcelona's year.
Since I don't honestly have too much to offer uniquely on this match, I'll throw up some final Champions League critiques on ESPN.
As said before, I won't miss Derek Rae's overly stodgy and stuffy delivery. I mean, bro, this line -- "When in rome, do as the Catalans." Cringe-worthy. That goes for double for all the forced gladiator comments.
Fox, your move.
So...Barcelona pretty much chumpatized Manchester United Wednesday in Rome, eh?
Sure the scored ended only 2-0, officially, but it probably was close to 2 to -10 than anything else. It was a testament to how well Barcelona played that they made Manchester United look like the Red Devils would have were they playing a non-league side in the FA Cup.
That, right there, is greatness.
You could say, as the starting quote implies, that United played poorly, but it was more a matter that Barcelona were that good.
Barcelona's passing, the tic-toc, tic-toc, seemed to hypnotize United with each successive completion. It was like each completed pass sucked the life out of Sir Alex Ferguson's men with each passing second. Frankly, it's a mild shock that the final possession stats were only 51 percent to 49 percent in favor of Barcelona.
The way the game unfurled was almost surreal. It set up on a platter for Manchester United, with Ronaldo's dipping freekick mishandled by Victor Valdes. Yet nobody was there to cash in the rebound, as fate clearly shined on the side of Catalonia.
And how about Andres Iniesta first touch, rushing up the field and threading a perfect pass to Sammy Eto'o, who scored at what appeared to be an impossible angle. (Note, Nemanja Vidic's pants are still somewhere on the Stadio Olimpico turf.)
From there Barcelona kept the slow simmer, as United couldn't do anything.
Xavi's perfect lofted pass to Lionel Messi capped it. Messi, who was good in the match, not great, threw his whole body at the ball and headed it clean by Edwin van der Sar (maybe United's only positive player Wednesday) and sealed it. Messi is probably going win all the Player of the Year awards, but I'd like to start some sort of joint-campaign for Xavi and Iniesta.
For my money, the player of the match was Carlos Puyol for playing out of position at right back and taking Ronaldo completely out of the match. Again, perhaps fortune shined on Barca, since Puyol's more defensive mindset worked out instead of the more aggressive Dani Alves.
Really, I wish there was more to say about this match but it was pretty clear cut. Maybe there's a part of me that's disappointed that the actual match didn't live up to the lofty expectations in my mind. This is mostly because of Barca's utter dominance and United's surprising and disappointing capitulation. Really, the whole time it lasted at 1-0 there was still no drama.
You could single out Wayne Rooney's M.I.A. performance, but then you could for just about every United player. That said, the Red Devils weren't the only squad humbled by Barcelona this year, in what was truly a magical season for the Catalans. Maybe we should have seen this coming when Iniesta's magical goal at the death against Chelsea.
It was Barcelona's year.
Since I don't honestly have too much to offer uniquely on this match, I'll throw up some final Champions League critiques on ESPN.
As said before, I won't miss Derek Rae's overly stodgy and stuffy delivery. I mean, bro, this line -- "When in rome, do as the Catalans." Cringe-worthy. That goes for double for all the forced gladiator comments.
Fox, your move.
Labels: barcelona, champions league, manchester United, Soccer
Not to ignore the poor performances of most of the United side (though they did a fine job of forcing many attacking moves toward the twin dead ends of Sylvinho and Puyol on the wings) and Puyol's serviceable impression of a right back and genuine capacity to irriate Christiano Ronaldo but simply had Dani Alves played and Thierry Henry not so obviously been in search of a goal for himself I suspect Barcelona would have scored more than 2 goals.
I thought ManU's decidedly ordinary central midfield would get exposed by Inter, but it ended up taking until today for it to happen. Carrick is a great passer of the ball, but that's all he does. Anderson didn't look great, but taking him off instead of Giggs or Park was probably a mistake. They badly need some bite and some speed and some drive in the middle of the park.
Which is precisely what Xavi and Iniesta provided. Lacking Gol TV, I've missed most of Messi's brilliant moments, but based on the Euros and the CL, Xavi is my player of the year too. Never puts a foot wrong, and central to everything good that happens for his team.
And now... the silly season. Well, I guess there's still the FA Cup final, but it's hard to get excited about that, especially since rooting for Everton is probably asking for misery.
United, despite being champions, has been rather meh all season except for the double battering of Arsenal. The semi finals really skewed peoples impressions coming into this game as Chelsea is much more adept at sitting deep and stifling a team like Barca. Xavi and Iniesta made ManU's midfield look beyond ordinary. I hear so much talk of Anderson's promise (and price tag) but he looked like garbage next to Busquets. Puyol was fantastic as well. It's really a shame Barca didn't score more, as they deserved the exclamation mark a ridiculous score would have added.
After the opening ten minutes, it seemed like the United players literally shrank up. Barça's midfielders were more creative, their forwards more aggressive, the Barça defense more properly positioned.
The Great White Hope of Rooney was non-existent. C-Ronaldo, to my eye, was engaged and trying the whole game - but the Barça defense gave him no room. Park's wonderful 'endeavor' seemed misplaced - like United could have used more creativity/skill and less trying. None of these players were the real problem, though - their efforts were lost in the massive gap between the two teams on Wednesday.
For once, the winner was clear-cut. No referee blaming to be done after this one. No whining about the losing team having more possession or creating more chances (my least favorite thing in the UK-centric media where statistics are laughed at, except when your team loses whilst having more of the precious 'possession'). In the Champions League final - there were no PKs to miss and no team feeling they were 'this close.'
No one can argue that Barcelona is not the best team in Europe. The match up of these two larger than life clubs may not have generated the most exciting game to watch - but it gave us a winner. A clear, dominant champion was provided. And that team was Barcelona.
Not to take anything away from Barca's win, but was I the only one that thought Most of Man U's midfield looked disinterested in the game? No one tracked back, no one moved to open space, no one marked anybody. I felt like their lack of effort kinda ruined what I thought was going to be a great game.
Quick example.. On Barca's second goal Iniesta had 3 players within about 15ft of him, but not a one of them was actually moving to mark him. Even the marking on Messi wasn't very tight. I mean it's freaking Messi, did no one tell them he's good and you might want to stay close to him?
It's like they were the buffalo bill's and they were playing prevent D all night. SAF really screwed the pooch with that line-up last night, and it just kept getting worse the more offensively minded players he kept subbing in.