A game of football not politics
In the end it came down to who played the best football undeterred by political intolerance and complicity.
For ninety-minutes and extra time FC Barcelona were jostled and hacked when not exposed to the occasional attacking forays of their Sevilla opponents. The Barca players held their ground, rose defiantly from their batterings, controlled the ball, played it with all the skill and passion they could muster.
A lesser team would have had the soul knocked out of them by Mascherano’s half-time expulsion but they kept rallying, and continued to do so after the shock of Luis Suarez’s withdrawal through injury.
Suarez’s departure in particular energised the team, with Neymar and Messi forced to shoulder the responsibility, together with the Iniesta, of taking the team to a display of collective heroism.
This was a memorable King’s Cup final and its victory a tribute to Luis Enrique and his players and the Barca fans who in the end displayed their club colours in more volume than the Catalan indepedence flag.
