My beloved Barcelona; beautiful and ballistic.

My great friend Peter Stemmet will not mind me posting this on my blog

what a wonderful read thank u pete

This week I just want to lavish superlatives upon my favourite Spanish team. My beloved Barcelona; beautiful and ballistic. This current crop of players possessed by the Catalan club are among the greatest ever. This is widely acknowledged by most observers of the beautiful game and boy, do Barcelona emphasise the ‘beautiful’ part.

Their zig-zag, diagonal passing and off-the-ball movement is a sight to behold. As much as I adore watching that flowing, one-touch-two-touch stuff , what I love even more is that you hardly ever see an aerial cross into the box from the Blaugrana. And why would you? After all any aerial cross into the penalty area results in a minimum 50% chance of losing possession. Perhaps what is most striking is that when this team loses the ball they battle like pitbulls to get it back. It is almost as if the attitude is, “Hey, where do you think you’re going with that?” This is akin to a WG Grace mindset. The crowd have paid to watch Barcelona play and complete around 700 passes per match.

It is also about time people woke up and realised just how brilliant this side is. The people I refer to are those who are so fat on a diet of English football that they are blinded to anything spectacular a continental European team accomplishes. The cherry on top of this laughing stock cake are those who foolishly say that Barcelona would struggle if they were in the English Premier League when they come up against teams like Stoke City. It is time to wake up and smell the coffee. Firstly, how do Stoke propose to get the ball from masters such as Xavi Hernandez, Andres Iniesta and Lionel Messi?

A similar attitude preceded Saturday night’s Champions League final. Quite frankly Manchester United had about as much chance of winning as my Haagen-Dazs ice-cream has of staying frozen in a heated oven. Alex Ferguson is the best manager in the world. Nobody can deny that. This crop of Man United players is hardly the best he has ever had to work with but they work hard for each other and that is why they won the English league. You could even argue that teams that are stronger on paper did not want to win it and so Ferguson and his men said, “Well in that case, we’ll have it, thank you.”

It worked in England but it was never going to work against Barcelona. Man-for-man it was obvious what would happen. Rio Ferdinand vs Lionel Messi? Pedro vs Fabio? Xavi, Busquets and Iniesta vs Carrick, Giggs and Valencia? If Manchester United were to stand any chance, Ferguson was going to be the difference.

They pressed hard early on and it was clear an early goal is what Ferguson wanted. If he had got it would they have pressed on searching for a second or would they have parked the bus? We shall never know. Once Barcelona got going the writing was on the wall and it was ominous for the red devils.

Two years ago they also met in a Champions League final and Paddy commented on the 2-0 score line that “United were lucky to get nil”. On Saturday it was 3-1 and in my view United were lucky it was not 4.

We as a generation are truly blessed to be watching this Barcelona team perform every week. How good is Pep Guardiola? Well one could argue that as a Catalan and former captain he is perfect for Barca. Interestingly he has hinted that he may not continue beyond next season. By that stage Vicente Del Bosque will be ready to move on from the Spain job. What price Pep is the next Spain boss?

One of the pastors at my church commented that God is a Manchester United supporter. I countered by saying if God was a football coach, His team would play the way Barcelona does.

And I shall allow the conquered Alex Ferguson to have the final word. In the aftermath of Saturday’s match, the Scot said that in all his time as a football manager this Barca side was the best he had face and never before has his side received such a hiding.

Stay blessed.