UEFA Champions League Final 2013.

Five Find-outings at Half Time 

- Like against Barcelona in the semis, Bayern seem to have adopted a "let them play" kind of gameplan. Though no damage has been done yet, Dortmund took the bait and turned it around quite brilliantly. There should have been no surprises tonight, but I dont think Bayern expected quite as much punch right from kick off. 

- Arjen Robben. Found himself with the ball in two really good positions. Perhaps the best scoring opportunities of the half for either side. First he chose to shoot with the left instead of switching feet to open up the angle, or passing it to a wide open Mario Mandzukic. The second was one-on-one and needed a toe poke almost anywhere except he sent it. Bayern cannot afford to miss any more of these chances and Robben will be key, as he was in the semis. 

- Gundogan is bossing the midfield. He has a massive engine, but is unlikely to be able to do be all over the pitch for the whole game. Sven Bender will need to get more involved. Jacob Blaszcykowski is proving a real attacking force down the right flank and Reus is good as ever in the hole. Maybe the left flank needs to get in there to mix it up a little. 

- Bayern has superiority in the air and will prove a threat on set plays. Though it has been a very open first half, except some action from free kicks and corners. 

- Manuel Neuer has been exceptional in the Bayern goal. Given that Lewandowski is my bet to get the first goal, he will need to be on it tonight. Thats the duel to watch out for. 

Now its back to the football. 

Guilty Without Charge

 

It is strange how the mind triggers responses. A couple of days ago I was watching a movie on TV called “The Other Guys”. The movie is a blend of satire and slapstick—hardly one that should have triggered thoughts of rape. Yet, that’s exactly what it did. Will Ferrell and Mark Wahlberg (the protagonists) are cops who are having a conversation about the need for heroes. Wahlberg’s character is of the view that the world needs heroes and he plans to do something dramatic to fill that void. Ferrell on the other hand talk about always having done the right thing, and if everyone did the right thing, we wouldn’t have any problems. While it might be a truism, he does have a point. And when he went on to say that when he was 11, he audited his parents and got grounded for it, it struck something.

There is always the urge for newsmen to go with dramatic headlines. “We are all rapists” is what I was thinking of, because the time has gone when those of us who have not committed a sex crime should consider ourselves non-offenders.Where crime against women is concerned, I believe we are all guilty.

The barbaric rape of a 23-year-old in New Delhi so outraged civil society in India that for weeks people like you and I have gone onto the streets and demanded justice and change. It was the tipping point, for what reason, I cannot say with any amount of certainty. It was close to us—physically and metaphorically—but so are hundreds of other cases. It was exceptionally barbaric—but since when do we have the moral or legal objectivity to decide that one rape is better or worse than another? What about the girl from Kerala, who was raped repeatedly by over 40 men for over 40 days, 16 years ago? A girl who has had to move home, deal with unending mental torture from her neighbours and the community at large and who still hasn’t received a measure of justice?

These are the stories that get reported. Cases where the victim is brave enough to seek some kind of retribution. To take on the perils of a legal system that victimizes far more frequently than it protects and supports. And all this goes on on the outside. 

The whole system has to change in India. That is a given in virtually every conceivable situation—not just in sexual assault cases. The rot that we are in goes so deep that nothing works the way it is supposed to. The scenes on the streets of Delhi, of middle-class India coming out and demanding action, come thanks to a government that has been so rapt in its self-imposed paralysis that it has done little other than fatten itself. Very rarely has a democratically-elected government so obtusely and single-mindedly mocked at the teeming millions it is supposed to govern. I don’t think “government” is a word that has been uttered by anyone (outside of the government machinery) in this country with anything other than contempt for generations. But the current lot are so comfortable in the realization that the nation has no alternative, that they are trying to push the already over-stretched envelope over the edge. Over-stretched it so much that even we, the politically inactive armchair intelligentsia, are out for blood. And of course we have hit rock-bottom, so any change can only be for the better. So I salute the activists and students and ordinary people who are out demanding change. But I also believe we need to stand up and take the blame for our own crimes.

What Happens on the Inside

 

When I think of rape, or sex crimes perpetrated by men against women, I first think of two women I know personally. Their stories are not mine to tell, but to me they form the basis of a problem that is so deep rooted that no amount of reform in policing, legislation or gender sensitization can ever change.

So here is why I am an offender. I know these women. And I know the men who have violated them. My crime is my silence. When these crimes were committed, both women were very young. The men who committed them were not just known to them, but very closely involved in their lives. When I found out about both cases my morals, as a man who does not commit sex crimes, were outraged. I kicked up a fuss about what I would do to the fiend the next time I saw him. I did all this behind closed doors. The next time I met the man, I behaved like everything was normal.

Sure, I can say she promised me not to do anything. I can argue that it isn’t my place to come out with a story like this because of the implications it will have on the life of women involved, and their families. I can say all sorts of things in my defence. But I know that my silence is not just my admission of guilt, but also proof of my complicity in a horror and injustice that no one should ever be subjected to.

There are plenty of figures from rape studies on how many of these crimes are committed by men who know the victims (call them survivors or whatever else you want to couch the fact, but the truth is that once you have been raped, you have been raped). Some studies indicate that the figure is as high as 80 percent. Why then are we out on the streets demanding better policing and stronger laws, when 80 percent of the perpetrators of these crimes are being sheltered in our own homes?

And forgive me, but I do not agree with assertions that 98 percent of criminals in these cases are men. In both the cases that I have cited here, there are grandmothers, mothers, sisters, female friends, some who know and some who don’t. All of them chose to remain silent. The ones who don’t know are as involved as the others because they are the reason girls all over this country—I daresay the world—keep quiet about sexual assault. Mothers have told their daughters to “forget about it and carry on with life” or that “these things happen, don’t make a fuss about it”. Educated women, men, you and me, the people who are demanding justice for the unknown 23-year-old on the bus, are the same people who failed, time and again, to seek justice for the girls they were meant to look after, raise, protect. That makes us all accomplices not just in this rape case, but in every such crime committed anywhere in the world. And when you multiply that by the impact our attitudes have on successive generations, our guilt multiplies a million fold.We might not mean to, but we are perpetuating a culture of abuse and a cycle where the depraved act with impunity simply because they can.

When I discussed this post with my most regular critic I was told, "abuse and the silence around abuse is complex, even where justice may not be." I agree with the premise that this is a complex issue and dealing with it requires not just the ability to understand complexities, but also the willingness to make difficult decisions; to deal with the inconveniences that will arise from those decisions. That is the kind of courage we need.

Why should we escape punishment? 

I am a criminal and my punishment is having to live with my conscience. I don’t think that is good enough. I don’t think it is good enough either, if I say that next time I hear of something like this, I will do something. I believe I should be punished for not shaming the men who perpetrated these crimes. Men who have since grown and started families of their own. Men who are regarded as upright citizens and bread-winners and even heroes, when instead they should be made to live the rest of their lives constantly reminded of the filth they are.

I also find myself shamed that it took a national protest to wake me from my own delusion. The time for introspection has come and gone. It is time that we take charge of ourselves, and our chemically castrated brains, long enough to process the crimes we perpetrate in our homes. Only then will anything really change.        

And to the scum who put these two girls through more mental anguish than they will ever know, the next time you see me know this—I know who you are. I know what you have done. Next time I see you, I hope I will have the courage to no longer pretend.    

Euro 2012 Final Live!

Under an hour to kickoff and this is probably the last review you will see for the Euro 2012 finals. About fifteen minutes ago the Italians stepped onto the pitch, took a look around the fantastic Olympic Stadium in Kiev. Super Mario Balotelli lingered the longest, taking time to soak in the atmosphere. I could talk about what’s going on in his head, but that would be pretense at its most pointless.

The Italians will start this game very much the underdogs, against a Spanish team that is still the best in the world. 1992 Euro winner Peter Scheichel put the talk of Spain being boring into very good context in Warsaw a couple of days ago when he told me, “You have to have a pretty vivid imagination to call Spain boring, or to criticize the way they play.” The only thing predictable about Spain is the regularity with which they get positive results.

Had Croatia’ Ivan Rakitic found the target with his header in the group stages, the Spanish might not have had this chance to rewrite history as they aim to be the first team to win back-to-back Euros. Now the only thing that stands in their way is eleven Italians who have been a revelation at these Euros. 

And here is how they will line up in just about an hour—Spain staring the game with Cesc Fabregas ahead of Fernado Torres. Spain lineup: Casillas; Arbeloa, Ramos, Pique, Alba; Busquets, Alonso, Xavi; Silva, Fàbregas, Iniesta.

In another surprise, Milan’s Ignazio Abate will start ahead of Frederico Balzaretti, who had a phenomenal semifinal against the Germans in Warsaw at right back. Italy lineup: Buffon; Abate, Bonucci, Barzagli, Chiellini; Marchisio, De Rossi, Pirlo, Montolivo; Cassano, Balotelli.

The two squads have just taken to the pitch to warm up, and the official VIP list includes Prince Felipe of Spain, PM Mario Monti of Italy, Ukrainian pole vault legend Sergey Bubka, Davor Suker, Christian Karembeu and God knows how many others.

The stadium is filling up here in Kiev. It is almost 9 p.m. and the sun is still up on a beautiful Sunday evening. Its pretty hot, partly because of the weather and mostly because there are more good looking women per square kilometer here than anywhere else I’ve ever been. Hopefully the football will heat things up even more.

brothers in arms, start playing the game.

At dinner last night, Gen. V.K. Singh, the chief of the Indian Army, came up in conversation. Regrettably, but also inevitably, it wasn’t because of what he may or may not have accomplished in his four decades in uniform, but because of his date of birth. As is the norm in this great democracy of ours, the Armed Forces only find mention in the national dailies in one of two situations. The first, in times of war, when it is but natural to be swayed by the spirit of nationalism and populist fervour and report the heroics of the men and women who go into battle. The second, and this is the more frequent by far, is when there is some sort of “scam”. Whether it is isolated incidents of Army personnel selling fuel, generals being involved in loosely defined “land scams” or Chiefs trying to get their dates of birth changed, as far as most normal members of civil society are concerned, that is all there is to it.
So going back to this dinner time conversation last night, the general consensus was that Gen. Singh was bringing dishonour to himself and to the Army by going to court over his date of birth, whereby he would keep the job for another year and by extension, get to live in the beautiful Army House in New Delhi till that extended term was over.
My only question then, as it is now, is why the men and women in the Armed Forces should hold themselves to a higher standard than anyone else in this country has ever been asked or required to. And why every Indian considers it his right to hold these men and women to standards that he may not hold himself to. I was told that in India, the Army (when I say army, pls read armed forces. I mean no disrespect to the other services, it’s just easier to type) is the only institution in the governmental fold that has maintained a sense of discipline, efficiency and integrity and that civilians look at the army with respect and expect its members to conform to the high standards it has set in the years since 1947, blah, blah, blah. All of this is, of course, true. And the central point of my argument is that by consistently setting itself higher standards than the rest of the nation, the army has done itself the greatest disservice possible.
The “respect” for the army is the first point of contention. This so-called respect exists in the drawing rooms of a very limited set of individuals who have some sort of social or emotional connect with the armed forces. As a nation, there is anything but. That the armed forces have been systematically removed from the nation’s decision making matrix by a largely self-serving bureaucracy and intelligence establishment is neither new, nor remarkable. But having achieved the initial objective of keeping the upper echelons of the services out of this decision making process even in matters of national security, the civil establishment was not done demonstrating its “respect”. From the third pay commission onwards, the system has systematically screwed the army and skewed the balance heavily in favour of the civil administration. The army has now been reduced to fighting for one rank one pension, a battle that has been summarily ignored by the nation’s free media. As individuals, pensioners have been reduced to beggars, pleading an apathetic government to give them what is rightfully due after decades of service. We can go on and on about longevity of service, virtually guaranteed promotions, corruption… but the point of this little rant is not to criticise the way the civil administration functions, but to actually pat them on the back suggest to the upright men in olive green (or Air Force blue or Navy whites) that the way forward is not to consider themselves above the other organs of government and their political masters. The way forward—the only way forward—is for the armed forces to get into playing the same game.
How many cases have there been of MLAs, MPs, ministers or even members of opposition parties occupying accommodation in prime locations even when they are not entitled to? How many other cases have there been of civil servants holding on to government accommodation in New Delhi while on posting elsewhere? Does it even merit a story in a newspaper? Does it lead to esteemed national newspapers calling for their resignation? Probably not. It just isn’t a big enough deal. We know bureaucrats and politicians are corrupt. So then why bother talking about what they are doing wrong? We can’t expect any better from them. But the army? Now that’s a different ball game. Those guys should know better than to try and hold on to house for a year longer than they are allowed to. It is, after all, the only institution that has any respect in this country. The men and women who form its ranks are brought up in a different India—an India where there is safe drinking water, no poverty, education for all and the integrity of men in unimpeachable. What’s that? They aren’t? They go to the same schools and colleges as us and exist in the same socio-cultural milieu? Really? To use a borrowed phrase, “whodathunkit”?
Forget about MPs and MLAs. Let’s talk about common people. Let’s say a constable in the Delhi Police. How can he (even if he is a head constable), on his government salary of six kilos of peanuts and two dozen almonds a month, afford to drive around town in a brand new car, complete with four wheels and a CD player? At that rank in the army, you can barely afford a two-wheeled contraption propelled by said army man’s feet at the pedals. But where’s the story there? Cops are corrupt. Everyone knows they are. The guy joined the Army to serve the nation. So if he sold a few litres of military issue diesel in the black market to send his daughter a new dress for her birthday, I say we should lynch the bugger.
The point is that I don’t know what Gen. VK Singh’s motivation for getting his date of birth changed is. I’ve never had the opportunity to meet the man, and if I do I will ask him. Gen. Singh came in for more criticism when he said the government was treating him like the chief of the Pakistani Army. Would that he were so lucky. Had he been doing the same job on the other side of the border, god knows he would have to answer to anything as absurd as a civilian government.
I am by no means an expert, but I do hold the opinion that in this great democracy of ours, everyone has to fight for what he wants. Just like the bureaucracy has spent the last sixty or so years setting itself up for retirement in luxury, and politicians have been getting fat at the cost of everyone else, it is time for the army too to realise it owes allegiance only to itself. As long as the armed forces continue to complete the tasks they are mandated to with the unparralled efficiency that has become their norm, let other matters not be of their concern. As long as the officers have the respect of the men under their command (which is all you have anyway, don’t let anyone fool you into believing otherwise), why should they be bothered about earning the respect of the businessman who doesn’t know the difference between a subedar major and a major general? Or the babu who might pay 5 crore for a posting so that he can make 50 crore when he gets the job? Or the pot-bellied, fat-arsed journalist (that’s me) who claims to be free and fair, but in truth is only serving the same political master he goes to bed with?
I do not know what will happen of Gen. Singh, but I do hope his tryst with destiny and the date of his birth will open eyes and open doors. I do hope that every man and woman in uniform will fight (using democratic means, of course) to hang on to that house that they waited two years to get in the first place, and for every rupee of that pension that you or your brothers in arms shed their blood for. And if you can hold on to it for one day longer, get one rupee more, you will be a hero in my book. And you will have played the game—and won.

We're going to London!

Devendro Singh is just 19. Last month the young Army boxer saw-off experienced opponents like fellow-Armyman Nanao Singh to clinch a spot on the Indian team for the AIBA World Boxing Championships, the first qualifying event for next summer's London Olympics.

Today he justified that performance and the faith of the selectors, booking a spot in the last eight of the competition, and a ticket to London. The light flyweight (49kg) boxer beat seventh-seed Carlos Quipo of Ecuador 18-12 in the round of 16 to make it to the last eight and secure Olympic qualification. The top 10 boxers in each weight at the Worlds will qualify for the London Games.

Devendro was making his debut at the senior international level at these Championships in Baku, Azerbaijan and was particularly emphatic in the previous round with a massive 40-19 win over Joselito Velazquez of Mexico.

The Indian team management said they expected two or three boxers to make the grade for London at this event, but the favourites were the more experienced boxers in the squad--the likes of 2008 Olympic bronze medallist Vijender Singh, light heavy Dinesh Kumar and Navyman Suranjoy Singh. That Devendro would be among the best performers on his first outing at the senior level, will undoubtedly make his coaches happy.

Manoj Kumar joined Devendro in the last eight of the light welterweight (64kg) class with a hard-fought 17-15 win over China's Qing Hu, an Asian Games and World Cup silver medallist. Manoj was down 10-13 after round two, but came back superbly to take the bout. The Commonwealth Games gold medallist is now one win away from an assured World Championships bronze medal.

The attention will now shift to another 19-year-old, Vikas Krishan. Krishan is the reigning World Youth and Asain Games champion and will go up against Turkey's Onder Sipal later in the day. He had a tough previous round against Nurudzinov Mahamed of Belarus, with the judges scoring it an even 10-10 at the end of the bout. It took an individual recount to get a result and Krishan narrowly made it through, 32-31. If his run continues, he will become the third Olympic qualifier. Lightweight Commonwealth Games gold medallist Jai Bhagwan will also be in action this evening in Baku hoping to make it a very decent four qualifiers out of a possible ten for India.

Boxing has emerged as one of India's brightest medal prospects at the London Olympics. After Vijender bagged the nation's first medal in Beinjing in 2008, money has been pumped into the sport and the current quad has considerable strength in depth. Indian boxers came home with plenty of silverware at both the Commonwealth and Asian games in 2010, but the real target has always been the Olympics. Now that these young boxers are getting set for the pinnacle of amateur boxing, it is time for all the hard work to start paying off.

In defense of the indefensible

On July 8, the B samples of Mandeep Kaur, Sini Jose, Juana Murmu and Tiana Mary tested positive for steroids. They were among eight elite athletes who failed dope tests prior to the Asian Athletics Championships. Three of this bunch were members of the women’s relay squad that won gold at the Commonwealth and Asian Games in 2010. With these revelations, the heady feeling of optimism that had been building as preparations for the London Olympics in 2012 continued was swept away, and how.

“[Ashwini] Akkunji [who also tested positive] was the poster girl of Indian athletics, a double gold medallist at the Asian Games, and expected to go on to even greater things. There were genuine hopes of a medal at the London Olympics, but that dream now seems shattered,” wrote Gordon Farquar on the BBC website. They now face automatic two-year bans that will effectively end their careers.

Hopes shattered, dreams dashed, nations humiliated, medals confiscated—that’s how most dope stories usually pan out. But this doping saga is not new. We have heard this story through and through. The athletes get caught, they plead innocence, coaches get sacked and then we start all over again. We decided to take a look at where it all stems from.

“It has to be appreciated that at the time the menace of doping for the health of athletes... had yet to enter the morals because, after this marathon, the official race report said: The marathon has shown, from a medical point of view, how drugs can be very useful to athletes in long-distance races.”
This was said by Dr. Jean-Pierre de Modernard, a scholar in the history of doping in sport.

Dr Modernard was referring to the marathon at the 1904 Olympic Games. The race was won by Thomas Hicks, an American competitor. Hicks actually finished the race second, but the runner finishing first was disqualified because it was found he “ran” half the race in a car. But Hicks too had outside help. When trainer Charles Lucas found his runner flagging, he decided to inject him with a milligramme of sulphate of strychnine and make him drink a large glass of brandy. With four miles of the race to go, Lucas administered another injection. Far from being illegal at the time, the use of medical drugs was considered beneficial and even essential to an athlete.

Let’s put things in perspective. Today, strychnine is used as a pesticide to kill small birds and rodents. After ingestion, the body starts to spasm, which turns into violent convulsions before death by either asphyxiation or sheer exhaustion.
Fred Lorz finished first in 1904 after his 11-mile car ride. “It was just a joke,” he told his interrogators after being found out. “It seemed like a funny idea at the time. I was going to tell you before you gave me the medal. Honest.” They believed his story, but still took away his medal and banned him for a year and gave the gold to the dope-addled, and probably drunk, Hicks.

Times have changed, though, and so has technology. Along with changing times, our morals have gone through a transformation as well. At some stage in the history of sport, the effects of drugs on athletes were considered inhumane. That was when the era of doping control began. But why did athletes start taking performance-enhancing substances in the first place?

It may be an oversimplification but the idea that an army marches on its stomach is not a new one. Nor is it obsolete. Wars throughout history have been won or lost based on the ability of an army to feed and supply itself.

In North Korea today, while the masses starve, the army is always kept well fed. The idea that nutrition corresponds to improved physical performance is pure logic. And the expansion of the definition of nutrition to include a variety of other substances is merely an extension of that chain of thought. Across continents and cultures, naturally occurring drugs like mescaline, opium and cocaine have been used to reduce pain, tiredness, hunger and thirst and result in better performance, whether on the battlefield, while harvesting fields, or in the bedroom. And what is sport if not toil, labour, performance, even war?

So if we were to extend the logic just a little further, the most natural thing for an athlete to do would be to find any way to get an edge over an opponent. It is even more natural for a coach as hungry for success as his ward, to look for other avenues when he finds that the young man or woman he is training will never be good enough to win anything without some help.

Although this may sound like it, it is not an attempt to defend the indefensible. Our 21st-century morals tell us, in no uncertain terms, that sport should be pure. There should be no fixing, no doping, no rigging and no cheating.

But if we were to examine the Indian context, the standard of our sporting achievements is constantly ridiculed when compared with the rest of the world.
Yet, these men and women compete with athletes on whom millions of dollars are spent every year to ensure that they train under the right conditions, travel and live in comfort, have access to the best in terms of sport science, training techniques, medicine and nutrition. Our elite lot get something to the tune of Rs 600 a day when they are part of a national training camp.

The Sports Authority of India is an organisation with limited means. It has political bosses who demand results. It also has to deal with pressure from the media, which is constantly critical of the way it functions and the performance of the athletes under its care. There is pressure from the public, too, which demand medals. The weight of these demands can get too much. If performance targets are not met, funding will be withdrawn, leaving athletes, officials, trainers and administrators to suffer.

For the good of the majority, a few have to make the sacrifice.
Federations fiercely protect these athletes. Tests are engineered or fixed and samples are swapped. This continues until there is a change in the regime. When a new boss comes in, he wants a new coach or athletes from his state. So, the federation stops protecting its doped-up golden geese and the cycle begins again.
Dr. P.S.M. Chandran, a former director of medicine with SAI, has said repeatedly that doping has been a part of the system for over two decades.

But the problem is as much a system that allows doping as it is a system that doesn’t really exist. After the latest story broke, every media outlet went out and demonstrated just how easy it was to get your hands on banned performance enhancers.
It was too hot in New Delhi, so we decided to check if we could just have the dope delivered. Turns out you can. And you don’t even need a credit card. After shooting off e-mails, we received lists of the available drugs, delivery charges and even friendly advice on what to take, depending on how serious we were and what results we wanted. Steroids at the touch of a trackpad—that’s how easy it is.

The trouble, though, is that the systemic failure extends beyond ease of access and “overlooking”. While in countries with more money there are dedicated labs to create masking agents good enough to hide the drugs in an athlete’s urine sample, here, the guinea pig is also the lamb that goes to slaughter.

late, but because nothing beats saying i was there

"Gar firdaus ruhe zameen ast, hamin asto, hamin asto, hamin asto," said Mughal Emperor Jahangir when he thought he had discovered heaven on earth. If Jahangir was a football fan and had managed a ticket to London’s Wembley Stadium for the UEFA Champions League final, there is a good chance he would have changed his mind.
No disrespect to the verdant landscapes of Kashmir but, on Saturday, May 28, the football-watching world—reports estimate about 300 million people watched the game on TV—was lifted, in 90 minutes of magic, straight to footballing heaven.

Manchester United and Barcelona, the champions of England and Spain, considered
the best leagues in the world, were playing for European supremacy. Both clubs have a
rich history in the competition, having won it three times each, before Wembley. And
if the CVs of the teams were impressive, so was the venue. The old Wembley stadium
had hosted the European Cup final five times. Among those was the 1968 final, when United beat Benfica 4–1 to win their first “cup with the big ears”. In 1992, the year before the tournament was rechristened the Champions League, Barcelona’s dream team—led by current coach Josep “Pep” Guardiola and coached by Johann Cruyff—
won their first.

Getting to Wembley wasn’t easy, starting with the first step—convincing the powerful people in the media office at the UEFA headquarters that you are a legitimate football writer.

But as an Indian journalist at the season’s biggest game, the hardest part of it all happens, perhaps, when you walk into the magnificent stadium and are standing by the elevator when the biggest names in football walk past you to get to a room where they will sit down and answer your questions.

What do you do? Do you behave like a professional and tell yourself that, at the end of the day, it’s just another football game? Or do you just walk around star-struck, delighted that Manchester United legend Andy Cole signed your copy of the official matchday programme (which us lucky media freebie hunter types didn’t have to shell out 10 quid for), even though you are as far from being a United fan as the Sun is from Pluto (not sure if that conveys exactly how far I am from being a United fan, but it was the best I could do at the time)?

It’s a tough choice. The game was watched around the world but, on that night, the stadium was like a slice of the planet. All of Europe was represented, as was North America, but the flags hanging off the ramparts were far more diverse. From Brazil to Bermuda, Algeria to Thailand, China to Nigeria—if ever there was a cosmopolitan crowd, this was it. Much is said of the global appeal of football and very little proof of the pudding is needed when you talk to a fan who has spent months saving up and then travelled thousands of miles to witness sport in its purest form.
Walking into the stadium on matchday was a surreal experience. To have the gladiators of the 21st century perform for you while the rest of the world watches is special in ways that cannot be described. To the players, it may have been about winning. To the fans, it may have been about the glory, and to the clubs it may have been about pride and the not exactly small amounts of money along with it. But to an Indian journalist among the 90,000 faithful at the Wembley, it was about being a tiny part of history.

On May 27, match eve, Sir Alex Ferguson seemed a relaxed man. He entered the press
conference room with Nemanja Vidic, Rio Ferdinand and a big smile. “This could
be the best final of the decade.” The facts clearly backed his statement. About 26
hours later, he would be back in the same room to say, “In my time as manager, I
would say they’re the best team we’ve faced. Everyone acknowledges that and I accept
it. It’s not so easy when you’ve been well beaten like that to think another way. No one has given us a hiding like that.” True.

On Saturday night (I supposed it is now I few Saturday nights ago), in front of a full house, Barcelona took to the pitch and handed United a footballing lesson that can only be described as a masterclass.

The game was won in the middle of the park. As expected, Barca played three in midfield—Xavi, Andres Iniesta and Sergio Busquets—with Lionel Messi playing in front of them and David Villa and Pedro Rodriguez as inside forwards. The wide players drew defenders, opening up space in the middle. With players like Messi and Xavi, there is very little room to relax. When given space, they can be devastating—exactly what they were.

The incredible part of watching Barca play is how hard the players work on and off the ball. When in possession, they are calm and watchful, and the midfielders have the vision of Shiva’s third eye. Barca completed 667 passes with 63 per cent possession. United didn’t make half that number.

At Wembley, they did to United what United do to other clubs in the Premier League, week in, week out. Barca broke them down, blow-by-blow, play-by-play, and when United were on the ropes, the Catalans delivered the knockout punch. And the best
part—they made it look effortless.

After the game, Messi praised “incredible” Barcelona. But, while no one doubts the win was a team effort, Xavi put things in perspective. “He (Messi) is the number one, he makes the difference—he is the best player in the world,” said Xavi. Messi scored the decisive goal, like he did two years ago in Rome. It was his 12th goal in 13 Champions League games this season. Cristiano Ronaldo may have scored 40 in the La Liga but Messi may have put an end to the debate over who the world's best player is.

The Catalan club joined Bayern Munich and Ajax at the next level, with four European Cups. The current generation of Barcelona players has won it all. They are spoken of in the same tones as the Madrid squad of the late 50s; the Ajax, Bayern and Liverpool teams of the 70s; and the treblewinning Man United team of 1999. And they have a certain Leo Messi.

Most of us have not had the fortune of seeing older sides play football. We have all seen this Barcelona team, though. While the debate over which of these sides is actually the best club side ever might be an endless one, there is a clear fact. In the evolution of football, teams from half a century ago played a very different style of the game. There wasn’t nearly as much running, possession was given away cheaply and defending was not really a priority.

In the 1956 final, Madrid beat Stade de Reims-Champagne 4–3. Four years later, in
1960, they beat Borussia Dortmund 7–3. A 7–3 result in a Champions League final today
would be inconceivable. “I didn’t see the Ajax of Cryuff, I didn’t see the Real Madrid of Di Stefano and the Santos of Pele,” said Guardiola, summing up the debate after the game. “But if in 10 or 15 years’ time, people remember us for the football we are playing now, that will make me very happy.”

Football may transcend cultures, but it is a tribal sport. Football fans are its fiercely warring tribes. But Barcelona have a quality that make them different. For followers of the sport, Barcelona is a uniting factor.

And there’s a reason for this, it’s the way they make the game truly beautiful. Like
this: In March, Barca leftback Eric Abidal underwent surgery to remove a tumour from his liver. He recovered and was a surprise starter on the night. When asked why he was chosen to lift the trophy, Guardiola said, “It just shows what kind of human beings these players are. This is what makes us strong. It is a privilege to train these players.” And to an Indian football writer among the 90,000 faithful at the Wembley, it was a privilege tp have seen this great team take the field as one.