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This must go down as Barca's best ever team, surely? First Spanish team to win the treble. Scored a record-breaking 145 goals in about 60 matches. 104 league goals, 2nd of all time in that category, I think. Also two or three of the best footballers on the planet playing together and them just mowing down the opposition. Stunning fact that I just found out after reading their wiki page: They have never not qualified for Europe. Since European competition began in 1955, they have qualified for Europe through the league in each and every single year

Indeed, fact it's the exact same trophy should be a dead give away. But the group stages now exist!! Therefore it's harder to win it!!!

Treble for Barca. Almost forgot. I'm also glad the bs back-to-back winners didn't happen. Go tell Real Madrid, Benfica, Nottingham Forest etc. that they've never won the European Cup consecutively.

My grammar is infinitely worse when I talk football. I don't know why.

Messi's had a few so he's just being a WUM. I think Rooney's pretty effective on the left and he's had some excellent games there. I don't think it's fair to say that he's wasted out there when he's shown that he can be very good out there, better than whatever his 'best' position is (I don't even know what it is). Rooney has to be responsible for his performances. If he's shown that he's good on the wing and today he doesn't perform, it shouldn't mean that it was Fergie's fault that Rooney didn't perform. Rooney had a poor game today (consecutive CL finals that he's been poor, imo) so it's on him to improve. With the way Man Utd play - the hybrid 433 451 - I don't think Rooney can actually play up front alone, so he's gotta learn to play this position better. Ok, what I want to say: He had a good game against Arsenal, has been playing well in the Premiership and been one of Man Utd's best players this season so it's obviously not the position that caused the performance tonight. He was poor and it's the second final that he's been poor in. Gotta do better if he wants to be compared with his own teammate.

From a post in a Man Utd forum my mate just showed me 'No one's doubting that we're a great team, but to say anyone questioning individual players or team selection is a "cunt" is utterly ludicrous. Obviously something was at fault because we didn't lose, we were crushed. Humbled; embarrassed; humiliated; trashed. We were outplayed from ten minutes in to the end without a spark of brilliance from our team.'

Each league offers something different and it's up to you which one you prefer to watch. I prefer to watch the English league because I have an attachment to one team and thus have mostly negative feelings about all the other teams that inevitably beat my team. I also enjoy watching La Liga because a lot of the world's best players are in it and particularly this year, I think we've seen a team that will be remembered for a long, long time. But this league vs league shit is just tedious and boring. Btw, would love to go see a Bundesliga match in the stadium. Best crowds in Europe, imo.

Man Utd at full pelt? Barca wouldn't allow it. We've seen it time and time again: they dominate possession and control the pace of the game. They weren't going to let the game become end-to-end because they know how good Man Utd are on the counter-attack, so they played it slow, happily and frankly easily passed the ball around Man Utd's midfield (their first-team midfield, might I add - with the exception of Fletcher who I don't think could have changed the outcome of the match) until they found an opening or two, which they then seized. It's been the same story with all their other matches. I mean, even when Man Utd were down 2-0, they still couldn't create a clear opening. I think it says a lot that Barca were able to contain them that well and like I said, it could have been more. A Man Utd onslaught is usually done by pushing up and pressuring the opposition into losing the ball, then just streaming forward towards the goal. Man Utd did try to pressure Barca but they were passed around so that's why I think they retreated. At the start of the second half, when Tevez came on and they tried to pressure Barca again, Barca played their best football of the match because there was space to run into (Henry chance, foul that led to Xavi's free-kick). Honestly, I think that Man Utd don't have the midfield to compete with Barca. I said it when Chelsea defended for their lives and said it last year when Man Utd defended for 180 minutes - that style of play is so dependent on scoring an awesome goal and scoring it early. When that fails, or when the worst happens and Barca score, you're then fucked because the space created makes it even easier for Barca to play their football and their football really limits the chances that the opposition can create. I thought Barca struck a perfect balance between slowing the game down and pressing for extra goals. On a few occasions that Messi got the ball in space, he didn't instinctively charged towards Man Utd's goal, but seemed to relax and pass it around. From my perspective, they did that because it forces Man Utd to bring all their players back to defend and thus makes it harder for them to launch a successful counter-attack. If Messi charges towards goal and loses the ball, Man Utd would still have had a lot of players in Barca's half and they could have attacked the way they do in the Premiership. Guardiola out-thought Fergie tonight, in my opinion.

Ridiculous. Barca's the best team but that was all that tonight proved. Nothing more.

For real now, when was the last time Man Utd were outclassed like that? And it wasn't like they had a bunch of players missing or players recovered from injuries. Barca were the team that played three of its starters out of position and had Henry looking pretty unfit and yet they passed Man Utd to death. Ankdh, I agree with you that Barca didn't absolutely batter Man Utd in terms of constantly pressing and attacking, and also that we didn't get an entertaining end-to-end 3-2 or something, but the way Barca passed it around Man Utd in the second half was very impressive to me. Man Utd are one of the hardest working teams in the world, and they've got a lot of players who are good on the ball and move well without it, yet they could not string more than 3 passes together because of Barca's midfield and defence. Not since Porto in 03/04 and Real in 99 have I seen such a one-sided CL final.

are For Dave.

First ten minutes I was pretty nervous about Barca because Man Utd really pressed up and Barca's passing was very, very off. They looked and played like they were nervous, then Eto'o scored and for the the rest of the match, they utterly dominated Man Utd. It could easily have been three or four and yet you can't even say that Man Utd deserved a goal. Superb stuff from Barca. I'm pretty glad that I've been right about them too, incase you haven't felt it bursting out of my posts

Best thing about Barca: their obsession with playing the ball on the ground. They had a free-kick 40 yards out. Any team in the world sends people into the box and whips a ball in. Not Barca. Iniesta taps it to Xavi, Xavi sprays it to the left and they're playing as if they could do better than just whipping the ball into the box - and the awesome thing is that they actually can and do. Likewise with corners. They prefer to play it short rather than whipping it in and that says a lot about their desire to play the game on the ground.

A team is a collection of people. They don't 'wins' something. Lesson over. But not when the 'entity' is considered a single thing. Manchester United is one singular thing. So they can also 'wins' stuff if you refer to them as a united entity i.e. refer to them as a club. 'Barcelona's winning this' 'Barcelona are winning this' Both correct.

Puyol owned that right hand side. Rooney was ineffective there likewise Ronaldo. But not only that, Puyol actually popped up on a few occasions and supported the attack (imagine if that little chip had gone in...). He was as good as any Barca players - but to be honest, I thought all of them were superb which really shows how good they are as a team.

So bitter What did you think of Messi's performance tonight, dan? It was the dream final and there was one team who absolutely outclassed another team. Barca's performance was sublime; when was the last time you saw Man Utd get totally shut out and owned like that?

Only did it because Shak asked me to

Man Utd's best player? Probably Ronaldo. He was the only one who showed up tonight. Rooney was very quiet and too defensive, Man Utd's entire midfield got outclassed by Busquets, Xavi and Iniesta (what a game he had, wow...), and Vidic making a mistake that probably cost them the match. Barca were awesome. Messi was excellent. His touch and technique is world class. There was one take in the second half where the ball was kicked pretty hard by Pique, still in the air and probably above Messi's head, Messi jumps up, chests in down and continues running with the ball - all in one motion. Superb stuff. I thought Iniesta was MotM and Eto'o also had a great game (second time he's scored in the CL final).

Pwnage. I hope the claim that Barca can't score against English teams, that Man Utd are better than them, that any team in the world right now is their equal etc. etc. is put to bed. Enough of that ridiculous shit. Outclassed. A fucking footballing lesson was taught tonight and Man Utd just got a taste of what Barca have done to their opposition in 95% of the matches they play. There's no other team like them. 2 shots on target by Man Utd.. a 35 yard free kick that was poorly palmed away and a Ronaldo chance right after the second goal. Nothing else. Not one single good chance. Not one 1v1. Man Utd created nothing. It was all Barca. The way it should be. The beautiful game played the way it's supposed to be played. Awesome.

That's gotta hurt.

7.45pm I'll be heading to the pub around 6 or so to get a good area to chill in, hopefully right next to the tv.

This. I'm disappointingly non-plussed about this game though, not looking forward to it eagerly at all. Reckon it'll be fairly dull viewing. We need Mike to say this.

Got my retro Valencia shirt on. Closest thing I have to a Barca shirt

Yes and no. Yes because Ashley has made a ton of mistakes and I don't know if his business model is appropriate for a football club, especially now that we're going to be losing a lot of money. No, because there's a chance that Ashley has learnt his lesson and will be willing to do more of what is needed - such as giving the manager backing and full control. We also desperately need some stability, so on the whole, I'm really not sure.

Lunch, revision then football.