[新聞] Guardiola's brilliant creation is enough to make the hea

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Ian Herbert: Guardiola's brilliant creation is enough to make the heart weep

http://0rz.tw/NsijY

Pep Guardiola's words had sounded a little too ornate to be football
language when he took a seat up on a stage in this stadium on Tuesday
evening and spoke of how he wanted his side to be "beautiful" and to
feel they were playing in front of the whole world. But that is how
it was when their moment came. When all the analysis had spun out and
it came down to the football it really was 10 individuals creating
geometry so astoundingly satisfying to see that the words for
Manchester United were ones which so rarely apply. Predictable,
staid, ordinary.

Guardiola had his players interchange, so that Patrice Evra, presumably
expecting Lionel Messi for company, landed Samuel Eto'o instead and
Rio Ferdinand was face to face with Messi. Andres Iniesta's story will
be well told this morning and so too Messi's but a single minute –
the 27th – in the Stadio Olimpico encapsulated the Argentine's story.
Messi runs, arms pumping back and forth in that way of his, Michael
Carrick, Nemanja Vidic and Park Ji-Sung arrive in unison, blowing
heavily, and collectively dispatch him to the turf – from which he
leaps, in space and with the ball still at his feet. If only the
well-earned free-kick had not destroyed the sporting narrative flow.

Some of the many TV replays fed around the stadium screens focused
on the players' feet – a blur of grey boots, jabbed tentatively in
the general direction of the bright blue pair, Messi's – which wove
throughout them all. But it was not only he whose momentum carried
the new European champions past Anderson and Carrick again and
again and made you wonder how it might have been were Owen Hargreaves
here (it was for wars of attrition on European nights like this that
Sir Alex Ferguson bought him). Yaya Touré stepped through that
midfield too. Not a single, misplaced pass from Barcelona until
Xavi's 40th-minute ball – thumped for Eto'o to run on to – was
overhit.

Yes, this was beautiful football and also because it was delivered
with the minimum effort. The run-up for Xavi's 51st-minute free-kick,
arced around a United wall after Carlos Tevez had clipped Messi to
the ground, required a couple of short steps but it slammed against
Edwin van der Sar's left-hand post.

There were threats in places where none of the analysing had offered
the prospect of any. Sylvinho had never really featured in all the
talk. He is 35, after all. But his was a wing-back's performance
last night – no doubt – and it contributed in large amount to
Wayne Rooney's anonymity. Gerard Pique left Old Trafford because
he despaired of dislodging Rio Ferdinand and Nemanja Vidic, and his
moment came when Rooney advanced in one of United's rare sorties.
Pique blocked his way.

When the goal came which confirmed Barcelona as masters of the
Continent, one of Messi's blue boots slipped off – a result,
it seemed as we watched it, of the momentum of a 5ft 7in player
crashing back to earth after climbing to head the ball in. There
seemed a symbolism in that: a player who had defied the laws of
gravity not even needing those boots.

Looking to this match, Ferguson had his own memorable way of defining
the special characteristic, which defies too much rationale and marks
out the winners in football and life. "Whether a toolmaker or a baker,
they have something in them, that little spark that they want to be
successful, want to be winners."

To a man, that summed up Guardiola's men last night. What unfolded
here blew fresh air into a hot summer's night. It was an object
of beauty.

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推 DemetrioTai:這裡要向Sylvinho致意. 此前我曾說他已經不具備在我隊
→ DemetrioTai:踢球的能力. 我完全錯了. 他有這個能力. 而這點只要一
→ DemetrioTai:個人相信就夠了: Pep Guardiola.