Lucky enough to see him in the flesh at Wembley in the Champions League final versus Manchester Utd about ten (?) years ago. That Barca team were surely the greatest club team in the history of the game. Early 70s Ajax wouldve given them a run for their money if they’d had the same modern fitness knowledge.
On the train from central London to Wembley a lot of Utd fans were overly confident to the point of embarrassment. The two sitting opposite me rolled their eyes to acknowledge the general stupidity of their fellow fans to me. While leaving the train one whispered to me he just hoped Utd weren’t shown up too much. I quipped they’d be lucky to score none ala Bill Shankly. He nodded in reply.
Utd scored one but hardly touched the ball afterwards. Their manager Fergie just sat down for the last 20 mins or so in acknowledgement of there being nothing he could do.
Dont get me wrong Barcelona as a club are as despicable an organisation as Utd, Real Madrid, Juventus, Bayern etc. All of these so called big clubs are. As shown by recent events.
It’s a shame that the worlds biggest sport attracts so many scummy people into its hierarchies. Maybe if it wasn’t the worlds biggest sport they’d be scummy elsewhere. Thankfully my team have been rubbish since WW2 so get overlooked by grifters…….mostly.
But Messi…….maaaaan we’ve been lucky recently to have two of the games handful of true greats playing at the same time with him and the vain Ronaldo. It’d be interesting to have seen Pele and Maradona playing on modern smooth pitches and with the increased protection given by the early 90s rule changes regarding tackling.
In no particular order: Messi, Maradona, Pele, Ronaldo Mk1, Ronaldo Mk2.
Next level down: Cruyff, Zidane, Platini, Clown Lurch, Baggio, Van Basten, Ibrahimovic, Di Stefano, Beckenbaur, Haghi, Weir, Eusebio, Best etc.
Anyway it’s stopped raining now so I’ll pop out to get the tile grout I should’ve finished last weekend.
The 1st game started at 3 a.m. and the second at 5 a.m. my time. I do not watch American soccer in general, however. About the only sport I now watch with any regularity any more is baseball.
) 
