Those Who Played Football
0-0 Those Who Didn't Play At All'
Juliano Belletti was buzzing. "We're really, really pleased," he said. "A 0–0 draw here is an excellent result and although we didn't manage to get a goal in Spain we're confident that we can score at Stamford Bridge. I mean, look at the last round: it was 4–4 in London." The pause was pregnant with twins. You could almost hear the needle skid across the vinyl, grinding to a halt as the music stopped. "But, Juliano," came the reply, "4–4 would put Chelsea out; Barcelona would reach the final."
And that's the point. This certainly wasn't the way they wanted it. In fact, AS's Fabián Ortiz described it as a night so bad, so anathema to Barcelona, that "all it lacked was the devil incarnate: Jose Mourinho". Messi was "anonymous"; Eto'o, said the former Barcelona director Josep María Minguella, "always received the ball with his back to goal – which is the one thing he is not very good at". And the Madrid press gleefully saw a Barcelona side that was "shattered", "running on empty" and "flaking" just four days from the clásico.
But as the anger and frustration subsides, the irritation at what many culés see as a team that came on a destruction mission with the connivance of the referee, there's a realisation that Barcelona are not in that bad a position after all. "The road to Rome is littered with thorns," ran the headline in Sport, yet it remains open. Before last night's match, a banner declared "all victories lead to Rome"; this morning, one reporter notes, it should read: "a score draw leads to Rome".
"There are," insists Fernando Polo, "two options: go down to some bazaar on the Ramblas, buy a Japanese sword and start planning hara-kiri. Or stay positive and think that nothing is lost; the best is yet to come." Sport agreed: "It's time to see the glass half-full not half-empty. "Think of Stamford Bridge as a final," Joan Vehiles urges, "but one where if Barcelona go 1–0 up they're effectively 2–0 up." Barcelona going one-up is not so far-fetched either, says Santi Nolla: "Chelsea," he insists, "cannot be as ultra-defensive there as they were here."
"Hiddink, good old Guus, was winding us up," ran AS's match report. "He said 'it's going to be an open game with lots of goals because Barcelona attack and so do we'. He must have been talking about the second leg." He certainly wasn't talking about the first – a game in which La Vanguardia pointedly described Didier Drogba as an island in a wide open sea, miles from anywhere, utterly isolated.
"What would you take on a desert island?" asks Carles Rupiérez. "You could always go to Didier Drogba for suggestions. He had 89 minutes to think about it last night, 89 minutes to choose a book, a CD, to go for a mobile phone or a Swiss army knife or a lighter to make fires. Every now and then Piqué or Márquez visited him as they went to collect some strange object his team-mates occasionally sent his way, always by air mail."
There was some praise for Chelsea. Terry was described by one paper as "impeccable". Sport admitted that "Bosingwa stopped Messi without resorting to fouls". And even if there was talk of Barça's "ethical superiority", plenty of commentators pointed out that Hiddink has no obligation to play in a particular way.
Mostly, though, the praise was grudging. Or simply absent. "Chelsea were more of a wrecking company than a football team," El Periódico complained. "Mean-spirited, dull, destructive," said Sport. El Mundo Deportivo talked of "a recital of rough play". Ballack was "slow, badly positioned and always whining," said La Vanguardia; "Alex had no problem just hoofing the ball." All of it was aided by a referee who was attacked as "horrible", "disastrous", a "disgrace"; "all that talk of fair play and then there's none," Xavi complained.
Alongside a scoreboard that read: "Those Who Played Football 0-0 Those Who Didn't Play At All," one Catalan cartoon showed Pep Guardiola, wrapped in white, eyes blindfolded. "The good news is that if there is any justice in the world, we'll reach Rome," he says. "The bad news is that in this sport justice is conspicuous by its absence." In his hand are the scales of justice. There is nothing in the balance. Except, of course, the tie.
