Visca Barca!

Thursday, 7th May 2009

Jim Henley had a great post a while back naming names and shaming those people who blog too much. As Jim rightly put it, these days you need to be a professional blog reader just to keep up. On the other hand, there are those people who don't blog nearly enough. My friend Kerry Howley is one. Blimpish is another. And so is James Hamilton, whose More than Mind Games has been in a kind of extended winter break for some time. Happily, however, there are signs of the green shoots of bloggy recovery. Happily James is back to remind us how grateful we should be that Barcelona did the entire continent a favour by knocking Chelsea out of the Champions League last night:

And Chelsea were robbed. There’s no doubt that the tie was theirs on balance. But consider what it would have meant had the football gods (and let’s hope it was just the football gods and not bribery or UEFA as well) not intervened in the dying moments of the game.

We’d have had last year’s final all over again. With all that entailed. Just imagine:

Three weeks of self-serving, self-pitying mockney bullshit from England’s captain John Terry. Tedious speculation about penalties. Replays from Moscow on Sky Sports every day. The hideous ramping-up of the pressure on Guus Hiddinck to stay. Poor Frank Lampard’s mother getting wheeled out for inspiration. Mourinho hassled about his legacy. And all that Triumph of the Will stuff about the manifest destiny of the blues.

Quite so. Now we just need Barca to spank three or four past United in the final for all to be well with the world. Temporarily, anyway.

UPDATE: Via a friend's Facebook status: Cashenfreude - to derive enjoyment and joy from the distress and troubles of Chelsea Football Club.

UPDATE 2: Turns out that Kerry is blogging, just not so much at her place. So scuttle over to Slate's XX Factor for all the Howley goodies you need.

Filed under: Football (86 more articles) , Weblogs (74 more articles)

Previous Back to Alex Massie Next

Blogs: Martin Bright | Susan Hill | Melanie Phillips | Coffee House | Faith Based

Actions: Print this article | Email to a friend | Permalink | Comments (2)

Post this entry to: del.icio.us | Digg | Newsvine | NowPublic | Reddit

Post comment

Big Alec

May 7th, 2009 2:12pm Report this comment

To use the old cliche: last night's result was a victory for football. Now we have the two most exciting teams in Europe in the final. If it had been Man U v Chelsea, it would have been a one-sided affair, with Man U going all out for victory, while Chelsea sat in and defended in that rather Teutonic way that they do. Chelsea need an Arsene Wenger: a manger who will get them playing attractive, flamboyant football. Until then, all neutrals will be supporting their opponents, whether they are British or not.

Conservative Cabbie

May 7th, 2009 2:42pm Report this comment

"Now we just need Barca to spank three or four past United in the final for all to be well with the world"

On the performance last night, Barca aren't spanking anything past anyone. 92 minutes before their first chance on goal! I've never seen such a bunch of overrated rubbish since...well, the Obama administration.

Post comment