I have to be honest here. prior to the final, I was a bit torn...
Despite loathing Man Utd as I do, essentially due in no small part, to their moronic, idiotic, neanderthal fans, I was of the view nonetheless, after watching Barcelona's three recent outings versus their great spanish adversaries, Real Madrid - in which much of their personnel cheated and dived all over the field and generally behaved disgracefully - together with my bitterness of our (only short) shortcomings versus Barca, not to mention a certain scandalous Van Persie red, I felt a slight, slight persuasion towards United.
Thankfully, after just 5 minutes those feeling went out the window. I think it was the sight of Wayne Rooney's aesthetic features, (i cant be sure)...From the off, the beautiful encapsulating side of the Spanish champions came to the fore. Slick, graceful, elegant; everything good about them. It was clear, right from the outset, that United would be chasing shadows from large portions of the game.
Even so, after 25 minutes it reamined goalless and my thoughts began to come to pass; Utd could soak up the pressure and break on the counter. Then though, with 27 minutes elapsed, David Villa released Pedro Rodriguez into yards of space on the right of the penalty area. The (other) diminuitive forward kept his composure and gave Barcelona the lea with a placement low into Van Der Sar's corner of the net.
For which I celebrated...
In the conflab, Nemanja Vididc appeared to be asking questions of who was marking Pedro. But Evra was well off the pace. For the next 10 minutes or so Barca dominated possession, with the Red Devils seemingly clueless as to what to do about the claret and gold tide.
Until, out of nothing, a glimpse; a throw in from Ryan Giggs, to whom Wayne Rooney made a nice interchange to set Rooney out wide, passing infield to Giggs, in turn allowing Rooney to switch over and the welshman to supply a beautiful weighted pass a Rooney to send an effortless curling shot into Victor Valdes' top left hand corner.
The red half of Wembley went berserk. This highlighted my fear of what could happen. Before the game my chief concern was Javier Hernandez and how Gerard Pique, but particularly his namesake, Mascherano would handle him. In my opinion 'Chicharito' is the most unique striker in European football currently. In this game however he was largely anonymous throughtout proceedings. Indeed, Rooney's goal was the high point for Manchester United.
As the second half began, Barca seemed to double their work rate, certainly upping the tempo, at least offensively speaking. Predictably then - but perhaps earlier than postulated - Barcelona regained the lead on 50 minutes....Who Else....
LIONEL MESSI. Magic Messi. There are simply not enough superlatives to describe this man. Now was the time for his moment of inspiration to come. Slightly outside the penalty area, the little magician collected the ball and then proceeded to feint Michael Carrick and then, with little or no backlift, lash an effort, but which - and I have to say - was not unstoppable. For me Van Der Sar was at fault.
Regardless, Barcelona's players celebrated with extravagant jubilation, indeed it was the Messi's first goal on English soil, which is quite extraordinary. That would appear to be his only taboo subject. Or at least was...
No. Messi aint no pony....(thanks Ol ;))
From then on the game was not far short of a procession. United's defence was constantly overrun,erhaps lacking another man in midfield, characterised bu David Villa's third and clinching goal, delightfully curling into Edwin Van Der Sar's top right hand corner.
The game was done.....Xavi was his usual sublime self. Andres Iniesta was almost invisible the way he in and out of the game. Pique was nothing short of a tyrant in the Spaniards engine room. Abidal, who I am not the greatest fan of, was exemplary. Yes for an average player; let alone someone fresh off the operating table for a brain tumour. Extraordinary. It was a nice touch for Guardiola to give him the captains armband.
Well Done Barca.....now get your mitts of our players....except Denilson..
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