Sunday, May 29, 2011

UEFA Champions League Final

After celebrating my high school graduation Friday with some profanity-laced bowling and some "wholesome" Chatroulette with some friends, I fell fast asleep Saturday morning. Thankfully, I was able to wake up in time to enjoy the highly anticipated Champions League Final between Manchester United and FC Barcelona. As an Arsenal supporter first, I wanted Barcelona to win, but my emotions were split coming into this contest. I am always involved in the La Liga vs EPL debate so I decided to root for Premier League bragging rights, which I thought was pretty neutral.
I was growing tired of the match early on until Xavi delivered an excellent pass to Pedro who finished with ease in the 27th minute. A mere seven minutes later, Wayne Rooney equalised with an excellent, well-placed shot. Now the match was getting interesting and was starting to look ALOT better than last years boring Final between Internazionale and Bayern Munich.

Not even ten minutes into the second half, Lionel Messi crushed the dreams of Red Devils all over the world with an excellent strike from just outside the 18. The dagger came in 69th minute with, quite possibly the goal of the match from David Villa. The match finished 3-1 in favor of the Catalans just as I figured. I mean, its pretty hard to beat a team that is essentially the World Cup champions, right? A valiant effort indeed from Manchester United, but not good enough. This poses an excellent question, though. How long will Barcelona's dominance continue?
Lionel Messi is in his prime, and will be in his prime for at least another six years. Xavi and Puyol are aging, but Barcelona should still fare well in there stead. A question that many people have raised is, how long will Barcelona keep champion manager Pep Guardiola? Hopefully, the executives at the Catalans will have realized by now that this man knows what he is doing, and will continue to lead this superclub to several domestic titles.

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