Thursday, April 28, 2011

¿Por qué, Por qué, Por qué?

I have not written on my blog for sometime but after last nights Champions League Semi-Final I felt compelled to do so. Everyone is running out of superlatives describing Lionel Messi and FC Barcelona and in some respects, who can blame them? Messi was on the end of a lovely team move, he scored a fantastic individual goal and Barcelona play the best football and retain possession like no side I have seen in my lifetime. They can be a joy to watch, which begs the question, ¿Por qué? Why?


Barcelona also posess a sinister, nasty side that not many people appear to acknowledge. Now, don't get me wrong, there are plenty of teams who are guilty of this but Barcelona are particularly bad in this respect. If less glamarous sides or a technically inferior side displayed the same gamesmanship as Barcelona, i'm sure people would have plenty to say about it. However, Messi scored a couple of great goals, Xavi made a few million passes and nobody appears to remember the antics of Valdes, Alves, Busquets or Pedro.


'Football is the winner' proclaimed Xavi Hernandez after Madrid's negative counter attacking style. But is it? Every time there was a contentious decision, the Barcelona players swamped the referee. Victor Valdes was doing his best Adebayor impression by sprinting from one end of the pitch to the other to get involved in the handbags. However Dani Alves, Pedro Rodriguez and Sergio Busquets are by far the worst culprits, and they have previous. They spent half the game on the deck, clutching their faces or other parts of their body that were not remotely touched. Which begs the question, why?


Jose Mourinho may have gone too far with his comments but Barcelona are never criticised for their blatant gamesmanship and it happens all the time. Alves is guilty of it every time he plays, Messi has scored goals with his hand, Busquets is a notorious diver (Thiago Motta is his most high profile incident) and Pedro went down at every opportunity last night. As I mentioned earlier they are one of the best club sides of all time, surely they don't have to resort to such ugly, sinister acts of cheating and misleading the officials. Why?


I would love one of Barcelona's senior players or coaches to climb down from their ivory tower as football is not the winner. They cheat and dive at nearly every opportunity, and for this reason alone they will never be the best in my eyes. I hope their antics are highlighted soon because I for one am fed up hearing about how great they are. A bit of honesty and integrity would go a long way.