End of Season Cup Finals Are Meaningless

I am glad Barcelona won the Champions League, dancing around a Manchester United team that seemed cramped with lactic acid in the legs and Premier League hype in the head. But the final itself did not tell a story, despite various pundits hailing it as proof Spanish possession football is taking over Europe (see Euro 2008). A lovely extended cadenza at the end of a concerto maybe or, as Sid Lowe put it, "the cherry on the icing on the cake" that was Barcelona's extraordinary season. But a conclusive demonstration of European football's changing locus of power? We've been reading too much Goldblatt and Wilson.

Ditto with the FA Cup. Chelsea the cruel heartless bastards (who incidentally came worlds closer to beating Barcelona than any other team in Europe) crush hapless underdogs Everton, thereby sealing any hopes for non-Big Four usurpation in a very expensive tomb? Not really. Everton looked shit a few dreamy minutes after Louis Saha's lightning fast goal. Chelsea managed to do what Chelsea quietly do most weekends—expertly snuff out inferior opposition—which made the game seem more like a meaningless end of season fixture than a hotly-contested final in football's oldest knockout competition.

No, this was more, poof, season over. It's like the reel burned at the decisive scene in rather dull movie. The theatre manager has said he's sorry, there's nothing he can do. So I guess it's time for me to drive home and rent an old eighties comedy or something. Bring on Em El Es.