Entertainment For Lively Minds
El Clásico
Posted by DougieJ on 27 April 2011 - 10:05pm.
tonight's game: utterly compelling.
I await the 'something must be done' summit involving the Spanish Prime Minister, the head of the Catalan regional government, the two club presidents and the chiefs of police with bated breath...
That aside, Messi's goals, particularly his second, made me shout 'yes!' spontaneously in a way that I rarely do in games not involving Rangers or Scotland (where, to be fair, opportunities for such outbursts are relatively limited). Breathtaking.
But let's be honest - the other stuff was gripping too. Forget all the tut-tutting and hand-wringing - we love it.
Great image of Mourinho 'behind bars'. He'll relish that. Fantastic stuff.
- More from DougieJ.
- Login or register to post comments
-
Messi is a true wonder...
He looks like a small schoolboy who won a competition to meet the teams, yet those were his 51st and 52nd goals of the season.
The great gift of experience is giving you the ability to recognise genius when you witness it. Bravo Lionel!
Messi's 2nd
Ball on a string
It actually looks like the ball is on a string attached to his foot. Fantastic
Mourinho
Brings on Adebayor but leaves Kaka and Benzema on the bench? What was he thinking?
Messi, just wonderful.
I agree
Indeed Adebarndoor would have been sent off had his team-mate not gone dubiously before him. He only looked a bit dangerous when he ran at the keeper. And him playing meant Ronaldo was totally wasted and ineffective having been shunted to a defending-concious left midfield role.
Someone has to mention it...
where does he rate in the all-time greats?
For me, I would say:
1. Maradona (Messi has yet to win a World Cup *ahem* single-handed)
2. Cruyff
3. Pele
4. Messi
5. Best
6. Zidane
EDIT: some clarification perhaps. The list is of course really about the all-time greatest forwards...
Good list...
Mine is as follows:
1. Maradona
2. Pele
3. Cruyff
4. Messi
5. Zidane
6. Der Kaiser
It becomes interesting when you start breaking it down into club and intl career. Zidane has probably the most balanced resume in both fields, followed by Cruyff.
Maradona has the best overall international record, shading pele (can't argue with 1986 - we'll never see another solo performance like that). As for best overall club track record.... I'm tempted to say that Messi is there already. 97 goals in 100 games, huge performances in big games, wonder goals. Zidane won more, but I'm not sure that even at his imperious best he was as good a player as Messi is right now.
I don't much care for barca, but Messi is a joy. He pretty much embodies everything I love about football, and to see him contrasted against Ronaldo, a superb athlete - as good as the game has ever produced, but with a tenth of Messi's instinct, balance and raw skill - only makes it more perfect. When I watch Messi (and I've done a lot of that these last few years) it makes me want to go outside and kick a ball around.
Make the most of him is my advice. What a player - a privilege to watch.
Excuse the hyperbole - that goal still has me buzzing.
Good list back atcha
Can't argue with Beckenbauer's inclusion, and you could of course make the case that he was actually a forward player...
You've missed
Gary Birtles *tuts*
Wot, no Dion Dublin?
His Dad played drums in Showaddywaddy, how does this not endear him to the Massive?
*awaits suspect packages in post*
I'd have
Platini in there (not strictly a forward but scored a lot of goals) above Best and Zidane certainly.
And I would put Cruyff top.
The problem with judging Pele is that most of us have seen hardly any footage of him. The 1970 World Cup and that's it.
If Messi keeps going the way he is now though he'll soon top the lot. And he's still so young!
Fair shout
I guess with Pele we're basically talking about a rep built on one world cup final, one world cup and that insane career goals record (most of which were scored in mickey mouse leagues).
He's a hard one to judge, but most of those I know who watched him (including some elderly South American relatives) swear he was worth a place in the top two. Hence he's always there for me, the same way my head tells me that Peter Schmeichel is the best goalkeeper I've ever seen, but my heart will always say "Lev Yashin" when it comes time to call the top spot.
I actually think the list starts to move around a bit if we're going to talk pure, natural ability (I.e, leave the history and pots to one side, you need to pick players to win a football match with your life on the line):
1. Maradona
2. Messi
3. Zidane
4. Cruyff
5. Pele
6. Best
Pele
Two World Cup Finals, surely? He scored goals in both the '58 and '70 finals.
Apologies....
.... by "one world cup final and one world cup" I meant that we tend to only remember that glorious goal from the final in '58, whereas the tournament in 70 is chock full of magic moments, including in the final.
Speaking of which, that game also included probably one of the greatest pele moments of them all - the inch perfect lay off for Carlos Alberto to score what was arguably the best team goal of all time, given context.
He was kicked to ribbons in '66 - does anyone have anything from '62 (the world cup that never seems to get spoken about)?
Agreed
This series of games is genuinely EPIC.
Doing it on the biggest of stages..
The mark of the very best. Messi. Utter, utter class. A shortarsed, scruffy, gimlet-faced wizard.
It'll be interesting to see if he makes what some have called the finest central defensive partnership in The World look like a pair of hapless cloggers.
I'd no idea
that Benedikt Höwedes and Tim Hoogland were so highly regarded.
lineker's crisp ad
Had me rubbing my eyes in disbelief.can't wait to see what Jose eventually says to the press.
Alarmingly......
....cos there was no local footie tonight, I watched the first half.
Went up at half time (dire first half) and fell asleep until 15 minutes ago.
At least Jose can take solace in his record collection.
Sting, Phil Collins and Bryan Adams wasn't it?
Messi aside
Mourinho wanted it to be anything but a football match and Barcelona rolled their sleeves up gave him what he wanted and when they had won that battle (Pepe's sending off)they turned it back into a football match and beat them anyway. The best football team, club or country, ever, bar none. Messi? Still behind Maradona by some way but above the rest imo.
Could well be right about Barca's standing...
The tendency is always to downplay the current in favour of some imagined golden age, whether it be in music, films, TV or football, but in this case I think the hype is fully justified, especially when you consider the level of professionalism and athleticism that exists in the modern game. The great sides of the past were all very well but sometimes when you look at the opposition you do cringe somewhat.
It's every facet of their game
With the ball or without it, there are round pegs in round holes that can become square when necessary. Weak link? Maybe the keeper but they could play most games without one. The core of any side is what makes them great, Puyol, Xavi, Iniesta, Messi, enough said. Although and there is a touch of blind optimism here Utd with everyone fit and at the top of their game could run them close at Wembley, they might lose 5-3 but it could be a hell of a game
Tell you what...
I'd love nothing more than for Giggs or Scholes to score the winner in the final against Barca (which, joking aside, seems overwhelmingly probable). It would crown fantastic careers for either of them. Great players, albeit not quite in the absolute elite mentioned above, but without a doubt among the finest that the British Isles has produced. That continuity and identity does draw me more to United than any other English club. Not quite a supporter, but I certainly have huge respect for them in the same way that I had for the Liverpool of the 70s and 80s.
Salivating already...
Me to
I was thinking while watching last night, Giggs the greatest British player ever?
A whole 'nother thread.
Certainly a candidate.
Again, restricting it just to forwards, you'd have to choose between the likes of Giggs, Dalglish, Best, Lineker (pure striker but *what* a pure striker) and of course, further back, Charlton et al.
Tough one, but I wouldn't raise any objections.
Errrr
Bites lip.......
Didn't understand this
the other day. However my next door neighbour plays golf with someone who works at The Guardian. If what I was told is true I am genuinely disappointed and Ryan Gibbs as my neighbour calls him is, as Squeeze would say, "Up The Junction"
Why on earth did
Man Utd let Piquet go?
He didn't look
the player he does at Barca but maybe the fact the he is now hooked up with Shakira is an insight to why Fergie thought it best to let him move on.
You could say the same about...
Diego Forlan and Giuseppe Rossi. Even perhaps Tim Howard. In all cases the club obviously saw the potential, and I don't think it's often a case of mistakenly letting a talented player leave - it didn't work out, and some players just do better at other clubs. And yes, in Piquet's case personality may well have had something to do with it.
And of course,
it works the other way round as well. Cantona, fr'instance...
You ain't wrong,Fraser
"in Piquet's case personality may well have had something to do with it.".
The man is a half-wit and if he acted at Man Utd as he does in Barcelona it's no wonder Fergie got rid. Apart from Ronaldo he's easily the most hated by other supporters in Spain.Check out his spitting antics. Although i think Dani Alves might have overtaken him after wednesday's oscar winning performance.
Pedantry
That's three of you that've got his name wrong now! There's no t.
Pedant response
It's more than three,mine was a typo. Piqué,accent on the E.
Great players all
but nobody's mentioned the guy who rarely gets mentioned* in these polls, but is absolutely revered by his peers .
Sir Bobby Charlton.
At the risk of sounding contradictory, I think that he's become such an institution and national treasure that a lot of people have forgotten what a great player he actually was.
There's a programme in his honour on BBC2 tomorrow night.
*Edit* apart from Dougie, who must have been writing in sync with me :-)
I must admit,
I've focused heavily on the 'modern era', which in my opinion was ushered in by Cruyff and Total Football. I find it's impossible to truly rate icons of the past such as Di Stefano, Matthews and Charlton against those from more recent times. Strangely, Bobby Moore, although I've only seen 'Italian Job' era TV footage of him, seems easy to imagine in any of the great modern sides, particularly the classic Dutch ones.
Duncan Edwards
A young man who seems to have been regarded by one and all as one of the finest players ever to have strapped on a pair of boots, his tragic death prevents us from setting him in his true context but, from what people say and, given his frame, physique and natural athleticism, he is another player who, you feel, would have triumphed in any era of football but would have been particularly suited to The Premiership.
Bobby Moore
Didn't Pele describe as one of the best players he had ever played against? Be interesting to hear peoples thoughts on best British players ever - mine would probably be:
Banks
Moore
Best
Hoddle
Gascoigne
Shearer
(In no particular order)
Mourinho's post-match rant
Has there ever been a worse loser? What a very unpleasant man. I sincerely hope we don't see him managing in England again.
Real ranters of the world unite
Mourinho is a great coach, a master manipulator and a man loathed by officials - on and off the pitch - for his wish to embrace controversy, to shoot arrows at those who control the game - again, on and off the pitch.
He has never shared the protected managerial existence of Sir Alex Ferguson who, by playing favourites with the media and the FA and the EPL, is pretty much untouchable no matter how outrageous his comments.
Football needs characters like Mourinho.
And a bad loser? I think I'd feel just a tad irate if I'd seen Pepe straight red-carded after the Barca posse rode into town and told the sheriff what to do.
Barca are a great team but I'd love to have seen a second leg at Camp Nou with the tie goal-less and Real's counter-attacking excellence put to the test.
Alex Ferguson - smooth media operator...
Surely some mistake? He refused to speak to the BBC and has had major fallings out with just about everyone else.
Personally I find him a hypocritical, obnoxious, manipulative bully who will do whatever he thinks he can get away with to give his teams an advantage. He was the same when he was at Aberdeen - had to be to get a fair shot against the vested interests in Glasgow - but thats very unattractive and much harder to swallow at the "biggest club in the world"
But his redeeming feature is that the teams he puts out have always tried to play the most beautiful football.
Mourinho is cut from exactly the same cloth as Ferguson personality wise, and is equally successful. But in contrast, he has managed some of the richest clubs and most wonderful players in European football and plays it safe and boring every time. He is the true heir to the cynicism that almost killed the game in the 1960's, the likes of Helenia Herrero. And for that alone Ferguson deserves some redemption
Ferguson...
.. is not necessarily the "hypocritical obnoxious, manipulative bully" that most on here thinks he is.
He does at lot of non football related things out of the public eye that go unreported & I don;t just mean a biannual hospital visit delivering easter eggs & Xmas gifts to a Childrens Ward or LMA things
I was made aware of one such gesture within the last 3 weeks which went far far further than anything you could classify at "part of the job" - particularly when he had lots of other football things to contend with at the same time. I nearly shed a tear when I heard the tale - but regrettably it's not my place to retell the tale on an internet board.
I've no doubt thats absolutely true...
and there are a legion of similar stories from over the years. Like most people, he's a mass of contradictions, but the appalling side of him is undeniable in his professional life. Matt Busby he ain't.
Purple nose.
his first few years at MU were relatively unremarkable. He was blessed in that he started root & branch reform in a much more benign football managing environment. (& he didnt have the pressure of european football to distract him(
He had loads of time to get the club in his image before serious money came into the game when the pressure on results rose very quickly.
When things like Sky, CL (as opposed to the old fashioned knockout european cup), Bosman etc came into the game, MU were in a much stronger position & better suited to reap the rewards on offer.
When europes major clubs formed an alliance, the rest were shown 2 fingers (or, as my squaddy son would say "a pair of rods"), the drawbridge was pulled up & the rest were left behind without a backward look.
not so smooth
Smooth media operator was not how I described Ferguson.
His treatment of referees, boycotting of the Beeb, blanket ban of all media interviews when he sees fit, would each see him severely disciplined by most sporting organisations.
He has to hang, draw and quarter a referee before a touchline ban is imposed on him.
Mourinho, though, can wink sarcastically at a linesman and find himself banished to the Bernabeu naughty corner.
Also, I would not say that Ferguson has an Old Trafford monopoly on beautiful football. Tommy Doc's grooming of young talent such as Hill, Coppell, McIlroy, etc would grace the modern-day EPL.
At the risk of coming over all Perry Mason Dominic..
That isn't really what you said originally. I agree that, due to his now very powerful position in the English game, he is pretty much untouchable. As I said, he is indeed an insufferable bully.
However, that's as result of Man Uniteds dominance of English football for the last 20 years, not because he plays any successul political game, as your "Playing favourites with the media, FA and EPL" would indicate. He's a git, but at least it's always been consistent with everyone.
I also didn't say anything about him having the copyright on sending out teams to play lovely football? Just that he always has - even at Aberdeen his teams usually had 2 wingers.
Peace and Love
Deeply Unpleasant...
.. was the sight of at least 8 Barca players including the keeper instantly crowd the referee brandishing imaginary cards after the Pepe challenge.
The challenge was a middling yellow at worst & the ref got it dreadfully wrong. I'm glad i'm not the only person on here who think that Barca get a fair old rub of the green sometimes.
That said - they are a fantastic team & Messi is a bloody good 'un.
I hope that should both United & Barca reach the final, that it's ref'd by someone with a backbone. I think it will be tighter than most people think
Spot on,
although I would much prefer to watch Barcelona play in the final, they are not beyond a lot of unacceptable gamesmanship and blatant cheating. They got Pepe sent off and Busquets is an effing drama queen. Mourinho is not a good loser, but he was right to say that until Pepe was sent off, Barca were going nowhere and Messi was largely nullified. Still he got what he deserved, to play so negatively and at home is just wrong. Real Madrid are no minnow, they have great players and yet he set his team out to win in the most mean minded way possible. Barcelona and their defence would have been vulnerable last night and he didn't attack them, serves him right. Messi is a great great player but I would place him below Platini, Cruyff, Pele and Maradona - they dominated their national teams and World Cups. This has to be the level.
Good points
It's Barça's Holier than thou attitude that gets up my nose. If just for once they said "ok we were lucky with that decision" I'd have a bit more respect for them. They never do,They go on the defensive and start throwing around conspiracy theories Mourinho couldn't even dream of making up. Length of the Grass,anyone ?
Best team but biggest hipocrites.
Awful lot of truth
in What Mourinho said though. Ask Chelsea,Dynamo Kiev,Espanyol and most other teams in the Spanish league,see if they agree with him.
Mourinho has gone too far
in his after match comments, once again, he feels free to question the referee´s integrity and honesty and Uefa´s and Barca´s and just about everyone else´s . Same old, same old. Pepe´s red card was a borderline red card but that´s what you get when you play in Pepe´s aggressive way.
Many Madridistas here in Spain despair that Mourinho has turned Real Madrid into Inter Milan.
Messi had me off my seat
shouting in wonder. All the rest is just backdrop really.
It just annoyed me...
... as it (the 2nd goal) will spawn a whole generation of playground greediness.
So
Are you saying you want less individual-style goals to be scored? What about long-range goals? Too many of them will encourage people to shoot from distance instead of passing? But then what if they pass too much? We might end up with the Arsenal route where teams try and walk the ball into the net.
Yes, I'm being deliberately flippant (and probably quite irritating) but when a marvellous goal like that is scored, it seems churlish to moan that it'll encourage copycats. As a child playing football, one of the great joys is to try and emulate great goals such as Messi's second last night. If, confronted with a goal as wonderful as that you can only see the negatives, then it's a sad state of affairs.
I must admit...
... I do like the Arsenal route of passing the ball into the net (although Wenger's vision is clearly still a "work in progress") and Messi's Barcelona are the best in the world at playing this way. The way Barcelona played in the first half against Arsenal at the Emirates this season was the best passing and movement I've ever seen and, for me, that is more important for a kid to learn. But, you're right, I am a miserable bastard.
I'm not totally in opposition with you
Like most people, I'd rather watch a decent passing team play the game than a lump-it-up-front-to-the-big-man outfit. At European Championships and World Cups, the England team tend to get exposed as players who aren't particularly comfortable on the ball. It's a generalisation, but continental full-backs can spray passes all round the pitch whereas English defenders are applauded for clattering their opponents and knocking the ball into Row Z.
But to see the finest footballer of his generation playing for one of the best teams of all-time score a sublime individual goal against the most expensive side in history? If you don't like that then you, my friend, don't like football.
That is
a terrible reaction. What is wrong with telling kids to love the ball, to hold on to it, to try beating their man? Thank God the great dribblers like Cruyff, Best and Messi didn't have PE teachers screaming at them to get rid of it!
To be fair
The Barcalona style of play revolves around quick movement and one touch football, so it's not as if it's archaic to move the ball on quickly. Obviously, you'll see the odd brilliant individual goal from the likes of Messi, but mainly they move the ball around as a team. Xavi Hernandez reckons the youth coach used to shout 'a mig toc', meaning 'half a touch'.
Are you serious?
Come on - get on board! I echo numerous comments on here and also shouted "YES" when he did it. Then, as a Man Utd fan, a quieter "F**k".
I didn't see the game last night
but watched last week's Copa Del Rey final between the same two teams. Even though it wasn't end-to-end stuff, I was utterly absorbed, especially by Barcelona.
I know there's a tendency for the media to go a bit soppy about the purity of Barca's football, but some of the passing and movement in the opposition half was just sublime. It was one of the best games I'd ever seen, not in terms of goals or pivotal moments, but in terms of the obvious quality of the players and the tension of knowing somebody had to win the cup that evening.
Then Sergio Ramos dropped the cup off the top of the bus...
Watching that game
you can see why our American cousins will never take to football. Messi aside, all the diving and cheating made it hard to stomach.
Good point
Well said, I think the USA will only ever see "sawkerr" as
a womens / youth/ minority sport.
How could anyone...
watch Spanish football week in week out. No flow to the game as every 2 minutes the ref is blowing up over yet another embarassing dive. Don't these players have any self respect?
It's not like that every week
I do think it's more of a problem in Spain than anywhere else in Europe at the moment, but it does seem to depend on the fixture itself as to whether it's a real issue or not - plenty of games pass without the kind of incidents you're referring to.
Either way, the Bundesliga is the best league in Europe. That's my theory.
Agreed
The Bundesliga is the model upon which all other major European leagues should be based.
But I do enjoy watching Spanish and English football.
Ryman's Premier League...
edges it for me. No diving and the players happy to have a bevvy with you after the game.
Try watching Scottish football...
Populated by players who seem incapable of kicking the ball in any direction other than the one they are facing, and then as hard as the possibly can, with the added bonus of a sectarian mardi-gras that paralyses our biggest city every 6 weeks or so.
I'll take Spanish football any day.
I Just Think It Was Because
it was an El Clasico and had so much riding on it,the play acting and cheating from both sides was sickening to see, There are many La Liga games where they just get on with it like the game between Sevilla and Villareal last week that was a real classic with great football from both sides.
As for the best league in Europe I still think it's the Premier League for excitement and drama,maybe it's too predictable and thats where the Bundesliga scores heavily but I don't know too much about the Bundesliga. I have seen the odd game on ESPN but didn't really engage with it too much.
Premier League
It's been pretty poor this year, I think. Man United being the best of a pretty bad bunch. Sir Alex Ferguson has proven his genius by somehow getting that team to the title, with one foot in the CL final to boot. Though on a personal note I've enjoyed Liverpool's revival under Kenny Dalglish.
Really
I think it's been the most exciting in years due to it's unpredictability even though it's the usual suspects at the top again, Being A City fan there's still plenty to play for,I think the three teams that came up have been like a breath of fresh air and who can predict who will go down ?
But, in your own words....
'the usual suspects at the top again'.
I'm currently one place out from predicting the top six (Liverpool need to finish 5th, Spurs 6th) and I'm not sure the bookies would have given me 5/1 at the start of the season for so-doing.
If I'd done the same in the 50s or 60s, I'd have made a million.
Whereas
I'd give you 25/1 if you could correctly name the top six of the Championship in order now with only two games left to play...
"La Mano Negra"
Oh the irony of a Real Madrid coach accusing Barcelona of benefiting from the favouritism of the authorities.
An observation
Not really about any one team / person.
All of this ranting about injustice, favouratism, bias, cheating & so on.I honestly believe that just about all (if not all) referees are honest & do the best they can.
Which is more than I think the great & the good in this era of football do. Whenever a team does well, it is their innovative tactics, superb players blah, blah, blah. If a player from their team f*cks up, then they "didnt see it" (yes, that means you AV).
But every refereeing decision that goes against them is just this side of genocide to listen to some of them.
I dont think any ref sets out to be biassed, but if a mistake is made, it is made. How many on field decisions are ever reversed?
Most top end managers in the modern game, send out most of their teams with a brief to get in the refs face, (From George Grahams own mouth in a documentary a few years ago) put him under pressure, question every decision.
Is it any wonder that errors are made?
They hardly ever put their hands up & say it was deserved, my player made a horrific tackle, penalty kick, hand ball, whatever.
Bunch of cunts.
loved the comment on twitter
You know it's bad when Ronaldo wouldn't even make it into the top ten pricks on the field.
Real Madrid lose again!
2-3 at home to Zaragoza.
Wonder who Jose will blame this time? Aliens? Giant lizards? The military-industrial complex?
In the interests of balance
I'd like to point out that Barcelona (The Bestest Team In The World Ever (tm)) also lost. Perhaps they didn't do the play-acting so well today, and had to play eleven men for a whole 90 minutes.
Even the best teams lose now and again
The point is that, unlike Mourinho at every club he has managed, Guardiola doesn't blame every defeat on referees, conspiracies, and God knows what else.
maybe things are changing
Real Sociedad's winner was a soft penalty which would never have been given at Camp Nou.
I'm annoyed
Early in the season I tried to predict the game in which Barcelona would officially win La Liga, and decided it might be next week's city derby against Espanyol. So I bought tickets. And if Barcelona had won last night's game - or even drawn - I'd have had the opportunity to be right. Mind you, if Madrid falter against Sevilla on Saturday, I could still be there at the moment they win the title.
I'll be there,Fraser
Doubt whether we'll be in the same part of the ground as i'll be up in the gods being hit by the police.
Great news that they might not be able to win the title next week,they are unbearable at the best of times.
PM me if you fancy a beer earlier in the day. As a away fan ,the only way to get in the ground is to be part of the offical Police escort which is an Hour and half before kick off.If not, we are refused entry on Security grounds.We also get a baton across the arm for wearing Blue and White
Visca L'Espanyol
Excellent
I'm in sector 451, whatever that means. I'm going with a Spanish friend, and he'll be in charge of our plans, but I will PM you if he hasn't filled the day with visits to El Museo del Jamón.
cool
have a safe trip and maybe a Mini Massive mingle (Barcelona branch).