I was one of the few people I know who both wanted and expected Barcelona to beat Arsenal tonight in the Champions' League Final. Since my own Liverpool couldn't, I was delighted that the excellent Larsson proved the difference. The incisive Henry aside, Barcelona were clearly superior in every area bar set pieces (where, interestingly, there was far less of a gap than expected).
But listening to the devotedly skewed viewpoint of the commentators was kinda wearing. This was not a case of English commentators backing an English team: as ever the English elements of the team were having to rein in the worst of the fawning excesses perpetrated by my fellow Scot, Andy Gray. Gray could not see that the referee had to send off Jens Lehmann for clearly grabbing the ankle of Eto'o as he ran past, potentially to score. He could, quite legally, have allowed the goal for Barca that he chalked off and gone back to send off Lehmann (who I have tended to dislike, but whose dignified post-match interview rather won me over). But Gray's suggestion - that he be yellow-carded "for the good of the spectacle" - would have been a nightmare for next year's referee: players, realising that the rules are applied less stringently in champions' league finals, would have entered the next one aware that anything short of impaling their opposite number in the old Romanian style, skinning him alive and feeding his raw, filleted toes to his gagging, wailing children would lead to a kindly shake of the head and a stern but fatherly admonition from the officials.
And the fury at this clear implementation of the laws of the game was balanced by admiring laughter at Eboue's blatant dive at the other end, which led to the Arsenal goal. Had this been perpetrated by Johnny Spaniard, there would have been howls of complaint and a litany of comparisons between the honest northerners and their perfidious southern neighbours. The first Barca goal was clearly onside, and unanimously called as such afterwards by the studio team, bur Gray was as partisan as ever and simply asserted throughout, in the face of plentiful video evidence, that it was offside.
All in all, I thought it was a fun, competitive final, in which both sides did themselves credit. Nowhere near the level of last year's spectacle - the greatest final ever - but enjoyable as a tactical contest. Arsenal scoring first was good for the game, as the better attacking side had to come forward onto them from then on. Henry and Ronaldinho were less dominant than expected: the former was inneffectual with his last touch, while the latter was marked out of the game, while believing he could still run through the aassembled hordes of attendant Frenchmen. Unfortunately for Henry, his misses proved sufficient to decide the game.