Twelve minutes from the end of an enthralling, unrelenting Champions
League final, two Barcelona legends stood on the touchline and embraced. Andres
Iniesta took off the captain’s armband and wrapped it meticulously around the
upper arm of Xavi, his replacement. Xavi ran on to a great roar from
Barcelona’s fans.
The best team of our generation said goodbye to one era last night and
ushered in another in the same instant. Xavi, their heart and soul through the
magical Pep Guardiola years will leave for Al Sadd in the summer and others
will follow him away from the Nou Camp.
But the greatness will live on. Barcelona proved that. This is a new
team now, a team still capable of breathtaking football that can make your
heart sing but a team that can be tough and pragmatic, too. A team that knows
how to win.
Of course, they were beautiful to watch when they beat Juventus 3-1 to
win their fifth European Cup, joining Bayern Munich and Liverpool in the number
of their triumphs. But this was a game they won with guts as well as guile. Juventus
made sure of that.
Juventus goalkeeper Gianluigi Buffon had praised Lionel Messi before the
game as 'an extra-terrestrial who plays with us humans'. He said he hoped that
for one day he would return to earth and that was what Messi did.
For once, this game was not about him even though he had a hand in both
Barcelona goals, scored by Ivan Rakitic and Luis Suarez. Messi played well but
for once, it was a team performance that won this. It was team spirit as well
as brilliance that got them through against the Italian champions.
It had seemed to begin with that Barcelona would cut loose when Rakitic
put them ahead after four minutes and it took a heroic effort from Juventus
just to stay in the game. They equalized early in the second half but Suarez
got the winner Barcelona deserved.
So now the new era has begun. Forget any period of transition and the
problems the team was wrestling with early in the season when there was
discontent over the coaching of Luis Enrique. That’s history. Barcelona,
winners of this trophy in 2009 and 2011, are ready to rule again.
Juventus, it is said, are a team who do not let you play well and they
knew that, if they were to have any chance of lifting the trophy, they had to
try to impose their very own Berlin Blockade on the greatest attacking trio in
club football.
And for all the brilliance of Luis Suarez and Neymar Jr, the Italians
knew that, in particular, they somehow had to try to mute the genius of Messi.
They had to do it without Giorgio Chiellini, the most redoubtable of
their clutch of formidable defenders, who was injured in the build-up to the
match. And they had to do it even as world was still marvelling at Messi’s
wonder-goal in the Copa del Rey final last weekend.
How do you stop a player like that? How do you stop a player who can
start from a stationary position on the half-line, take on the Athletic Bilbao
defence on his own, slalom through them, evading tackles, lunges and pushes,
and smash the ball into the corner of the net?
‘I only give Juventus a small chance of success,’ Gianluca Vialli, who
captained the side the last time they won the trophy in 1996, said the day
before the game, ‘but if anyone can upset the apple-cart with Barcelona, it is
an Italian team.’
As it was, the apple-cart stayed defiantly upright. Juventus pressed
Barcelona strongly in the first three minutes and caused Javier Mascherano some
discomfort but the fourth minute brought was different. The first time
Barcelona broke the shackles, they scored.
What a goal it was, too. Messi drove an inch-perfect crossfield pass to
Alba. Alba laid it back to Neymar, who crossed for Iniesta. Some players would
have tried to score themselves but Iniesta is way too good to have done that.
He dragged the ball into the path of Rakitic instead and Rakitic passed the
ball into the empty net.
The game had started with a verse of poetry. Juventus and Arturo Vidal
tried to drown the verse out with some industrial tackling that brought him an
early yellow card but Barcelona were not deterred. Only a brilliant one-handed
save by Gianluigi Buffon from Dani Alves shot stopped Barcelona doubling their
lead before 15 minutes had elapsed.
Barcelona were beautiful, all flicks and unselfish runs and weighted
passes and clever angles. When they had the ball, Juventus struggled to look
anything other than utterly bewildered. But they did not give up. In fact, they
dragged themselves back into the game.
Led by the indefatigable running of Paul Pogba and Carlos Tevez, they
began to make incursions of their own in the Barcelona box. Morata curled a
shot wide and, midway through the half, after they had harried Barcelona out of
possession, Marchisio unleashed a piledriver from 25 yards that whistled just
over Ter Stegen’s bar.
But Barcelona rediscovered their mastery as half-time approached. Suarez
went close twice, dragging a shot narrowly wide and bringing a smart save out
of Buffon, and Pogba was booked for a scything late tackle on Messi.
Messi was starting to stir. He had seemed almost semi-detached until
then, walking his way through some of the game as if he was toying with
Juventus, letting others take them apart. Now he began to move.
He lit up the last minute of the first half with a devilish run that
took him past a panicking slew of Juventus defenders. There was a moment when
it looked as if he was about to pull back his left foot to shoot but he delayed
and ran the ball out of play. Nobody’s perfect.
Juventus needed another fine save from Buffon to keep them in the game
early in the second half after Rakitic led a Barcelona breakaway and Suarez
tried to beat the goalkeeper at his near post. Then a dizzying exchange of
passes that went rat-a-tat-tat from Messi to Neymar to Messi to Suarez to Messi
in the Juventus box ended with the world’s best player slicing his shot wide.
But ten minutes after half time, Juventus stunned Barcelona. Marchisio
produced the perfect backheel to play the ball into the path of Lichtsteiner
and even though his cross went behind Tevez, Tevez swivelled and shot and Ter
Stegen pushed the ball into the path of Morata, who slid it home.
Barcelona were rattled. The Juventus fans increased the volume and their
team pressed forward. Tevez lifted a good chance over the bar, Pogba fizzed a
dipping shot into Ter Stegen’s midriff.
Pogba protested bitterly when he claimed to have been wrestled to the
ground in the Barcelona box but the referee waved play on and that was the
reprieve Barcelona needed. Messi surged forward, skipped a tackle on the edge
of the box and fired in a low shot that bounced just in front of Buffon. Even
Buffon could not deal with it. He parried it and Suarez pounced, lifting it
high into the net.
Barcelona thought they had scored again when Neymar mistimed a header so
badly that it deceived Buffon and rolled into the net but it hit the Brazilian
forward’s hand on the way in and it was ruled out. He did get on the
scoresheet, finishing a final breakaway move with the last kick of the game to
complete a magnificent season for the Catalans.
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