So I eat my hat. Barca are not through to the Champions League final in Munich this morning as I had predicted days ago they might be, and sitting here writing this in Sitges, I share in the collective Catalan hang-over.
My heart and soul tells me that Chelsea did not deserve to win. That a team that played for much of the game just defending their own goal line against a much more skilled and talented team that simply was unlucky on the night will make the final a more boring occasion than would otherwise have been the case.
But in the cold light of today one has to accept that there was something heroic in Chelsea´s resistance, showing a kind of spirit that was lacking in some of Barca´s key players, not least Messi and Alves. And that the Chelsea goals when they came showed quality.
For Barca fans it was another night of frustration,after losing to Chelsea in the first leg and Real Madrid atthe weekend, watching missed opportunities by a team whose overall star status was badly let down by its evident lack of effective fire power. And yet the chant in Catalan of Óla, Ole, to be a Barca fan is the best thing on the world´ that went rund the Camp Nou after the end of the final whistle, suggests that cules still believe in their team´s greateness, and quite rightly so.
Chelsea may be briefly dancing on the grave of beautiful football, but it will resurrect soon enough this summer when La Roja play in the European championships.
Football is of course more that just about technique and style. Its also about stategy , tactics, and spirit, and all three simply were not there in sufficient quantities in the Barca team last night.
Today is Johan Cruyff´s 65th birthday. He made Barca great by combining all the elements necessary to produce a beautiful football that could win. Pep Guardiola has learnt a lot from his mentor and helped develop Barca into the great team we have seen in recent years. But there was no dream team last night, just a rather tired group of hugely talented players unable to resolve the nightmare of losing to a lesser but more deserving opponent.
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