I caught up with the Arsenal fan at Gerona airport as we were waiting to catch the plane back to London. He was at the news stand thumbing through a report in an English newspaper of his team’s defeat at the Nou Camp. He seemed a quieter man than the one who, with his mates, had pranced about near the stadium two hours before the match, rat-assed, and singing ‘We’ve got Cesc Fabregas’ over and over again. I felt kind of sorry for him and thought of nothing better to say than , ‘Sorry about last night mate, but the best team won didn’t they?” To which he gestured with an upright finger ,saying as he went, ‘we were robbed by the referee.’
Wenger clearly thought so. He spent most of Tuesday night blaming everything on the referee and will no doubt defend himself before UEFA. As for his players –it was not just a Dutchman who played-well, like a Dutchman. This was an Arsenal team that came out, like the Dutch did in the World Cup final against Spain, seemingly intent on snuffing out Barca’s play with brute force. Wenger’s boys were lucky to get away with conceding just one penalty. One thing is certain though: Respect is no longer a word equated with Arsenal-Barca ties. The gloves have been taken off.
Thankfully for some 93,000 Barca fans Tuesday night will be remembered for something else-for suffering and resurrection. In the lead-up to the match Pep Guardiola’s stress-related back injury had personified a team that was showing signs of exhaustion under the burden of a gruelling schedule of triple trophy hunting and having Mourinho at Real Madrid.
Pujol couldn’t make it although he would have played on a stretcher if called to do so. But Pep was there in the final hours,hiding his pain and staying with his players so that a team came out motivated enough to play with some of its style in-tact , and win . My man of the match was Mascherano who played like a noble gladiator in the lion’s den, before limping off, having given it his all. They used to call it ‘Sweating the shirt’ in the old days.
This was no carnival, more a football Via Crucis, suitably played on the eve of Lent.
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