Europe, is rooting for Barcelona...
The most powerful man in European football left
Manchester without saying a word, in keeping with his silent
departure from Barcelona 24 hours earlier. The prospect of another
all-English Champions League final had moved a little closer for
Michel Platini and, while he is always eager to refute charges of
Anglophobia, it does not take a conspiracy theorist to suggest that
the Uefa president will be praying for a Barcelona victory at
Stamford Bridge on Wednesday.
Platini emphasises that his only grievances against English
football are ethical, based on issues such as the trend towards
overseas ownership of Premier League clubs and the number of
foreign teenagers stockpiled in those same clubs’ youth academies.
But the idea of Chelsea joining either Manchester United or Arsenal
in the final in Rome on May 27 may be too much for Platini to face,
simply because he, like others throughout Europe, is rooting for
Barcelona, who, he says, “make you love the game”.
Barcelona are indeed a wonderful team, one whose artistry and
technical brilliance draw awestruck gasps from any audience, but
the European Cup does not always go to the team that plays the most
beautiful football. Johan Cruyff’s Barcelona “Dream Team” of 1994,
featuring the likes of Ronald Koeman, Hristo Stoichkov and Romário,
were trounced 4-0 in the final by Fabio Capello’s AC Milan.
Hard-luck stories are nothing new to Barcelona or anyone else in
this competition.
Bitter experience tells Barcelona that you need more than
technical brilliance to win the European Cup, but their players
could not help themselves after Chelsea sucked the life out of a
goalless semi-final first leg at the Nou Camp on Tuesday. Xavi
Hernández, the captain on the night, complained that “there was no
fair play from Chelsea at all. We played football. They did not
play anything at all.”
Football is not a beauty contest, which is why Platini and
others must hope that Barcelona can prove that there is substance
beneath their undoubted style when they travel to London next week.
They must illustrate that there is more to their game than the
glimpses of magic that they showed against Chelsea at the Nou Camp.
If it was enough just to play beautiful football, if possession was
nine tenths of the law, they would already be in the final, but it
is not, which is why the gut feeling is that Chelsea, bigger,
stronger, more powerful and more experienced, will beat them to
Rome.
It is an insult to players such as Frank Lampard, Didier
Drogba and the injured Joe Cole to call Chelsea the antithesis of
Barcelona, but, in Champions League terms, they are. Whereas
Barcelona are defined by the numerous flair players in their team —
such as Daniel Alves, Xavi, Andrés Iniesta, Thierry Henry, Samuel
Eto’o and Lionel Messi — Chelsea are epitomised by the mental
strength of John Terry, Lampard and Michael Ballack and the power
and aggression of Michael Essien and Drogba.
Barcelona’s players, who almost invariably lack such qualities,
will have to dig deep if they are to avoid being overpowered on
Wednesday, particularly since injury to Rafael Márquez and the
suspension of Carles Puyol will leave them with Gerard Piqué and
Martin Cáceres, both 22, in central defence.
A lack of physical presence, an unswerving devotion to beautiful
football and a shortage of experience in key areas of the pitch. It
sounds familiar, doesn’t it? Arsenal are the closest thing to
Barcelona that the English game has to offer, but they have nothing
like the experience of the Catalan side or indeed either of the
other two semi-finalists.
When it comes to the average age of the four teams’ starting
line-ups this week, Barcelona, Chelsea and United were all about
the 27-year mark. Arsenal, with five of their team aged 21 or
under, had an average of 24. It is a handicap, albeit one that is
insisted upon by Arsène Wenger.
Beyond that, there is a question of quality. For all their
talent and potential, do Cesc Fàbregas, Samir Nasri and Theo
Walcott really compare at present to Xavi, Iniesta and Messi? There
was certainly a lack of fantasy in Arsenal’s performance at Old
Trafford, where they were indebted to Manuel Almunia, the
goalkeeper, as they escaped with only a 1-0 deficit against United
on Wednesday.
By the time they had begun to get to grips with United and to
pass the ball with any degree of composure, they were trailing to
John O’Shea’s seventeenth-minute strike and, while their
second-half performance was improved, they asked few questions of a
United defence that had leaked ten goals in their previous five
home games.
Wenger is confident that we will see “a different Arsenal” in
the second leg and that United will regret their failure to add to
O’Shea’s goal, but the gut instinct is that Sir Alex Ferguson’s
team, their flair allied more strongly to organisation and a team
ethic, have enough about them to score at least once at the
Emirates Stadium. As such, although both semi-finals hang in the
balance, a repeat of last year’s Chelsea-United final is perhaps
the easiest to imagine at this stage.
Even if last season’s final in Moscow was more vibrant than some
care to remember, a repeat showing in Rome is not the most
appealing prospect, least of all for Platini or anyone else who
believes that England’s domination of the Champions League must be
brought to an end, artificially or otherwise.
They still cling to a reasonable hope that Barcelona can do the
job for them, perhaps quietening some of the demands for drastic
reforms, but only if Pep Guardiola’s side can show that they are
prepared to battle for the right to prove that their beautiful
football can conquer all.
<!-- End of pagination --><!--#include
file="m63-article-related-attachements.html"--><!-- BEGIN:
Module - M63 - Article Related Attachements --> <!-- BEGIN:
Comment Teaser Module -->
