David Leggat: Barca puts beauty back in the game

David Leggat

They call it the beautiful game but there are plenty of times it's not.

Go on to YouTube and put in any variety of phrases along the lines of football/bad tackles/violence/hard men etc and you'll see soccer as it's not meant to be.

But then you get a game which reminds you why it is right to be known as the world game, the undisputed giant of sport.

And Barcelona's win over Manchester United in this week's Champions League final in Rome was absolute, irrefutable proof that, without overindulging the schmaltz, the game can be a beautiful thing.

The man from the Guardian newspaper, who described the match as "an object of beauty", might have been pushing the boat out a bit, but as you watched Barcelona's performance you got his drift.

After an opening 10-minute salvo when England's premier club seemed poised to ride roughshod over a perceived delicate, and undeniably under-strength Barcelona, it became a dissection and Giggs, Ronaldo, Rooney, Carrick and co were on the slab.

From the time kids start playing soccer, their coaches will drum into them the importance of passing. Shoot, dribble, head, tackle yes, but above all passing is the key.

And Barcelona, as the garrulous blowhard Tommy "Old Onion Bag" Smyth remarked, passed Manchester United to death.

Barcelona possessed two magnificent midfield organisers. Xavi Hernandez won man of the match, but it could just as easily have gone to his little chum, Andres Iniesta.

The twin conductors each set up a goal and treasured possession as if it were the most important thing in their lives.

Coaches should get a DVD of the match to show their players what possibilities the game possesses. Hernandez and Iniesta simply didn't give the ball away.

And Manchester United, remember, are no slouches. Yet they were made to look second rate for much of the match.

They pursued shadows as they chased the contest, the ball invariably just beyond them, Barcelona for long periods much like the clever kids keeping the ball away from the strugglers in the playground.

Barcelona have always done things their way. The roots of their bitter rivalry with Real Madrid lie primarily in politics. Real Madrid were General Franco's club round the time he was putting the boot into all things Catalan.

But Barcelona, just as their spirit stayed strong in times of real adversity, have always been true to their footballing beliefs. The passing game is their game and right now - armed with a clutch of world class players - they possess the template for the game as it should be played.

And unless you're a Reds fan, you'll have relished, perhaps not too secretly either, seeing flammable Fergie's mob put to the sword.

Cristiano Ronaldo repeatedly proves it is possible to be both (arguably) the world's most devastating attacker and it's most loathed player. The preening poseur became a frustrated and eventually beaten figure long before the end.

Manchester United, for all their formidable powers, were lost half an hour before the end. When you can't get your foot on the ball - and more often than not then make a dog's breakfast of it - even the best can be reduced to second raters.

You wondered how Barcelona, shorn by suspension and injury of three first choice defenders, would cope with Manchester United's multiple attacking threats. As it happened, they did it with smarts and aplomb. Not to mention passing at angles to delight a geometrician.

"Two bad goals," grumbled Ferguson afterwards, as if that was the only difference between the teams. If ever there was a time to admit you've been done by a far better team, take your lumps and shut up, this was it.