But for those still undecided, Spiked helps answer the important question...
Smug Germans and my friend the Messi obsessed Cuban cook at work I cannot live with though. Come on Rooney!The big question is: who should the independent fan support? In yesterday’s Sun, Ian Wright – retired striker and patriotic gobshite – is unequivocal: ‘As a proud Englishman, my heart says that I HAVE to support Manchester United on Saturday’. He claims that with the likes of Rooney, Ferdinand and Carrick on show, it will feel like ‘a mini-England squad heading out at Wembley’. In that spirit, presumably Rooney will get sent off and United will lose on penalties.
Bizarrely, former Barcelona player Steve Archibald’s reasoning for saying we should all back his former club harks back to General Franco and the oppression of the Catalans after the Spanish civil war. But he does say there is ‘never any arrogance’ and they play pretty football, too. Here’s a man who has totally bought Barcelona’s ‘more than a club’ myth.
Hmmm… I’m not impressed by the standard of debate on display there. Here’s my thinking. On the one hand, you have Manchester United, aka The Evil Empire, who have been sickeningly full of themselves since being crowned The Least Worst Team in England in the weakest Premier League for many years. While the relative return to form of Wayne Rooney is something that England fans will warmly welcome, I suspect that most members of English football’s largest armchair football fan organisation – Anyone But United – will be hoping to see the blood vessels bursting out of Fergie’s face as his team get hammered, before cheerily getting hammered themselves to celebrate.
So, it’s a no-brainer, then: Barca all the way, right? Well, no. While I can appreciate that the current squad are among the best teams to have kicked a ball – with Xavi, Iniesta and Villa all brilliant foils to the maestro, Messi – I’m sure I’m not alone in thinking the boys from the Nou Camp are just getting a bit full of themselves. Despite what Archibald claims, there is some definite looking down the nose at other teams from stripy-shirted Catalans. That’s fine when you’re Jose Mourinho and you have a certain bigheaded charm, but that’s not the Barcelona way.
And the pass, pass, pass, pass mode of football may be beautifully executed, but f**k me if doesn’t get a bit tedious at times. They should be made to earn that cup, not expect to waltz in to collect it as if it were their personal property that they sometimes loan out for a year to some plucky little up-and-coming side like Inter Milan.
On this evidence, it’s a shame there can only be one loser in this game. However, Barca are just a bunch of continental types who don’t really bother us, week in, week out. And they are very talented, aren’t they? United, on the other hand, are in desperate need of being ‘knocked off their f**ing perch’, as an elderly Scotsman once said in different circumstances. Smug Spaniards I can live with.
