You join the BigBarcelonaBlog live at
the Vincente Calderon Stadium. Well, alright you join us live in front of the
telly where the BigBarcelonaBlog attempts to do live football reporting for the
first time. Expect typos. Expect grammatical errors. Do not expect the Spanish
Inquisition. Unless obviously Barcelona lose in which case it will be the
Spanish post-match inquisition with expert analysis from Torquemada Hansen and
Torquemada Lawrenson..
To set the
scene. Barcelona might finish the season without winning a major domestic
Spanish trophy. This is about as unthinkable as death in the mind of someone
living. Atletico Bilbao might also finish the season without winning a major
domestic trophy which is about as unthinkable as cheese on toast i.e. fairly
thinkable as far as the BigBarcelonaBlog is concerned.
The trophy up
for grabs is the Copa Del Rey (obviously if you’ve been following Spanish news
you’ll know that the trophy the king is most likely to provide would be a
elephant’s foot or the skin of a hapless lion mercilessly shot on a swanky
Botswana safari while his subjects deal with 50% youth unemployment and
crushing austerity. Just saying.). Barca have been the all-conquering best team
in the world over the last few years but Atletico Bilbao have an exciting young
group of players that have thrilled neutrals as they swaggered to the final of
the Europa league. Madrid have taken La liga from Barca. Could
these young pretenders take the cup?
The Vincente
Calderon stadium was a passionate…er…cauldron (sorry couldn’t help it – what am
I going to say frying pan?) as the two teams took to the field. This is unusual
for Spain where large numbers fans from both
teams being present is a bit of a rarity. The Atletico fans in particular took
the opportunity to do a lot of singing.
Then the
whistle blew.
But it could
as easily have been a bell tolling.
It didn’t take
long for Barcleona to find their attacking rhythm, Messi almost from the kick
off running dangerously at the defence and shooting just wide. Moments later they
forced a corner. Unusually swung in long, it ricocheted loose in the box and Pedro
pounced like a predatory panther in Paraguay (alright I’m gambling here for the
sake of alliteration). 1-0 Barca! The firecrackers were going off outside the
BigBarcelonaBlog’s flat. And back in the Basque country they were already
starting to think that when Barcelona start scoring from scrappy
set-pieces things could get really bad when they start with the tiki-taka.
So it proved. Barcelona monopolised possession. Iniesta
picked out a perfect through ball and Messi from a narrow angle blasted the ball in to the
top corner at the near post.
A third goal
was not long in arriving. Pique passed to Xavi on the edge of the area. He laid
the ball back to Pedro who with perfect precision (look at this
alliteration go! It’s a good thing he’s
not called Zedro that would be harder) curled it into the bottom left hand
corner.
The game
essentially ended there. Atletico kept trying but the last time a team came
back to beat Barcelona from 3-0 down the ref had received a
menacing halftime phone call from General Franco. They mixed in their trying
with some unpleasant fouls and the odd flailing elbow. Which was to be expected
but was still disappointing. What was also to be expected but was the opposite
of disappointing was that Messi would run through the entire Bilbao defence
about four times - one mazy dribble from the halfway line saw him avoid at
least two potentially leg-breaking challenges before pausing for a second,
realizing his body was miraculously still intact, and then firing a low shot
towards the far corner which the keeper did very well to keep out with his
legs.
The clock ran down. The whistle blew.
The cup was Barca’s. It was a fitting way for Pep Guardiola to finish his final
game. With Xavi and probably the greatest side to ever play football holding
yet another trophy aloft.
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