A brilliant win for Barcelona. They don’t get the glory of scoring, but Puyol and Sylvinho are the men of the match from my perspective. Puyol was completely relentless on his side of the field, and Sylvinho kept everything calm in the middle of the field.
The real shock is that Man U was never able to recover from the early goal from Eto’o. The Red Devils were flattened by it, and never truly woke up. It’s as if they expected one of Ronaldo’s early strikes to go in, and when they didn’t, they didn’t know what else to do. Barca ultimately takes this one with pressure to the end.
Most satisfying, though, is that this match is everything the Champions League was supposed to produce–a showdown between the two best players on the two best teams in the two top leagues in the world. The English Premier League may have had three of the semifinalists, but those matches produced the sort of final any fan would relish.
Finally ;
Sir Alex coughs and splutters through his post-match interview but manages to force out an admission: "In fairness, we were beaten by the better team tonight." Quite right too.
