A Conspiracy Theorist’s view of Barcelona’s Champions League wins
As much as you hate Jose Mourinho, as much as you may call his footballing tactics anti-football but the fact remains that he is the only manager
in the world he is the only manager in the world (from the top 4 leagues of the world) who has not endured a trophy less season since he won the Champions League with FC Porto of Portugal in 2003.
But last night Jose Mourinho gave the conspiracy theorists of the world some more food for thought.
“If I tell Uefa what I really think and feel, my career would end now, Instead I will just ask a question to which I
hope one day to get a response: Why? Why? Why Ovrebo? Why Busacca? Why De Bleeckere? Why Stark? Why? Because every semi-final the same things happen. We are talking about an absolutely fantastic football team, so why do they need that? Why? Why does a team
as good as they are need something [extra] that is so obvious that everyone sees it? asked Mourinho in his post-match presser last night.
Only if we look at Barcelona’s last few very important wins in the Champions League we are forced to think that they
have been on the better side of some horrific refereeing decisions.
Just a few weeks before the final in Paris, back in 2006, Arsenal asked UEFA to change the referee for the final as he
was pictured wearing a Barcelona shirt at some pub.
Arsenal’s wish was granted but the breathtaking spectacle that was to be was robbed of being that as Arsenal’s Jens Lehman
was sent off for a tackle on a Barcelona attacker and the Londoners were forced to play most of the game with a man down.
Eventually Barcelona ran out the clear winners on the night.
Back in 2009, when Barcelona went on to beat Manchester United in the final and eventually annihilating them, they were
extremely lucky to have even been playing in the final.
Just in the semifinal of that same year, Chelsea were denied three clear cut penalties before Andres Iniesta went on
to score the winner.
To add to that Manchester United’s Darren Fletcher was sent off in their semifinal second leg against Barcelona and missed
the final in Rome and many United fans, to this day say had Fletcher been playing that day, the end result could have been very different but sadly we will never know.
The point here is not whether or not Fletcher would have had a telling impact in the game but the question is why do
Barcelona always get the better of refereeing decisions?
Even last night Pepe’s red card was very soft to say the least and if by any standard that tackle warranted a red then
what about Dani Alves’s tackle just a few minutes earlier? What about the umpteen dives by Pedro? What about Sergio Busquets’s Oscar worthy theatrical antics?
Barcelona are the best team in the world and there is no doubt about that but are they any better than the Boltons, Blackburns,
Stokes and Parma’s of this world.
What they did yesterday was cheating, acting, lying and diving.
One cannot fail to recall the moment when Busquets was rolling in writhing agony on the Giuesspe Meazza pitch and looking
through his fingers to get an Inter player sent off in the last year’s Champions League semifinal, before getting up laughing and getting about his business.
Its time that the referees of this world to stand up, to book any and every player that surround him asking to book an
opponent, the behaviour is simple vile and reprehensible.
It can be argued that Messi does what he does because he is often playing against 10 men and it remains to be seen if
any Man United player will suffer the same fate as Pepe last night on May the 28th for now the conspiracy theorists will talk.