What's Real Madrid all about, Alfie?

The football Barcelona played at the Bernabéu was just brilliant. Their superiority was patent and on view for all the world to see. They've got something that Real Madrid don't have. The whites were hemmed in by opposition that dominated the midfield throughout the whole match. Barcelona played football and danced; Real Madrid just ran up and down, tiring themselves out.

Only if Xavi, Iniesta or Busquets lost the ball did Real Madrid ever try to put together an attack, but of course it was with a punt upfield in the hope that something might come of it. And whenever those three wanted, they could put the sheep to sleep passing the ball to one another with complete mastery, short and straight to the feet — perfectly executed, tight passes that were safe and sure for whoever was on the receiving end.

It was as if they wanted to take the ball home with them, because it was all theirs. Their mission was to feed the Barcelona strikers — and how well fed they were! — because they are so crushingly effective and the ease with which they create danger is permanent.

"Besides maintaining a very quick pace without once letting it up, the Barcelona players fought like true gladiators. They worked very hard indeed off the ball and never stopped moving.

"There was no negotiation, no refusal to paint their work of art on that green canvas, whatever the final scoreline might say, because they even played pretty football, always well placed. Their positioning in the team is a key factor. All their players show that a level of tactical thinking that is unmatched, with a highly developed sense of interchanging their roles.

The defensive effort was all Real Madrid’s, like the lion against the mouse. They were unable to neutralise their opponents with effective pressing in midfield, which is what they needed to do, although stopping Barça from making you so dizzy you end up reeling is much easier said than done. For the spectator, their well-put-together attacks in combination were a wonderful thing to see.

For as long as Di Maria had the strength to break through on the few occasions he had the ball, he was Madrid’s best player (along with “Saint Iker” Casillas, who deserves to be canonised right now).

Messi is the best in the world. Not only is his football spectacular, as an example of professionalism he also knows no rival. He shone on Saturday and it will be wonderful to watch him again in Wednesday’s Cup Final.

Barcelona’s success comes from their attacking approach, wisely applied to mature and become consolidated in time for the three more Clásicos that are upcoming. Attacking means you have to control time as well as your nerves.

Given all this, it’s obvious that Barcelona are better than Real Madrid, and that trying to build up attacking moves based on counter-attacks is not the most appropriate way to try to catch them by surprise. Their technical and tactical quality is such that they always occupy the pitch in a rational, well-balanced way, leaving no free spaces to be filled and taken advantage of.

Pep Guardiola's team always had their hands firmly on the reins of the match. With this result they’re now another step closer to their third consecutive Liga title, and the truth is that they deserve it, because they've done their homework properly. They’ve never stopped being themselves and it’s plain for anyone to see that they enjoy themselves and have fun when they play.

Another thing that needs saying is that Real Madrid aren’t making their fans feel as happy as they deserve to be, because the fans’ support for the team has been unconditional. Real Madrid showed more heart than order, and in the end their ambitions were frustrated.

Things I liked

I like and admire the huge dominance of Barcelona’s play. It’s football to be watched not with your eyes but with your soul. They treat the ball with respect, with adoration, almost pampering it. Watching this team in action is a delight for us all.

Things I didn’t like

Real Madrid was a team with no personality. This match should set the guidelines for how the next one needs to be faced, because the approach of trying to play against Barcelona with counterattacks is clearly not the way to go.

- Alfredo Di Stefano (Marca, 18 April 2010)

Karajan up the Khyber

Has the craze for minute's silences before football matches reached your parts yet? If not, you don't know what you're missing. Now no self-respecting Liga match can be without one to mark the passing of Alderman Mumble (sorry, the PA system isn't all it might be), now as sadly forgotten as he was then improbably corrupt. Yes, you know, him.

The key features of the new default modality for the minute's silence are that (a) it doesn't last for a minute and (b) it's not silent either. Presumably to save us from our baser instincts - particularly our unfortunate inclination to shout "Just bloody get on with it!" - the minute's (sic) silence (sic) actually consists of a twenty-second random snippet from some petrol-station-sourced K-Tel-equivalent of Herb Karajan's Adagio compilation, while the players all gather round the centre circle and link arms like the Tiller Girls with snoods.

So, football clubs, here's my proposal. If you saw fit to put on a testimonial match for the commemorated one way back when, fine, give them a minute's silence now. Under any other circumstances, isn't that what that half column-inch on page 14 of the programme is for?
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* On the rare occasion when the deceased actually did have a connection to the club, it's likely to be the son-in-law of Betty the Boiling Bovril Lady or the bloke who used to hang up the alphabet-coded half-time scores before the advent of video screens proved that truly none of us are indispensable.
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The Moatygate Tapes

Gazza, tell us about the Raoul Moat you know.

Raoul Moat, a knew um yairz agur. He yowsed to be a boansa in Newcastle. A knew um a lot of yairz since when a was a young kid when a played for Newcastle. He was lake a jettilman. Someone's musta woand him up or done something, rate? All of a sudden a've just listened to the radio, rate? A mean on TV nyowz. Obvisslee he's killed someone, and he's shot two, rate? Which is not naice, really. Obvisslee he musta been on droogz. And he shot two peepil, rate? Now a've heard on the nyowz that obvisslee the droogz a musta worn off. Now he's willing to give in, rate? The Pleece are gonna hold um, rate? He’s a lovelee blurk, a nur that. So, the end the deer, a think he's frightened... erm, he's put his gun doan. A nur for a fact, he's put his gun doan, because a think he’s scared in case the Pleece shoot um and kill um. The droogz have worn off. All he wants to do is surrenda. The end the deer, you shoot someone and kill two othaz, ye might get, what, twelve yairz? Could be about six yairz that he's oat. A nur that he's a good lad.

If he could hear a message from you, Gazza, what would you say to him tonight?

Well, a think that the Pleece got a hurled of um. Listen, a've drurv from Newcastle in a taxi to Rothbury. It’s cost a lot of money. A've brought a dressun goan for um, a big jacket, a've brought some chicken, some bread... a nur you’re gonna laugh at this one: a've brought um a can of lawga... a've brought um a fission rod, cause I heard he was at the rivva, and I’ve got a fission rod too, and fission I’ll have a chat with um, and talk to um, cause a think am the urnly man, I think, I can help um through this. A’ve talked to the Pleece. A sez, “Listen,” a sez, “A nur the guy, he’s a nice guy.” A sez a wanna go through where they had everything cordoned off. I wanna get through there but the Pleece wouldn’t let us. So that was a wairsta tame. Cause they would be frightened in case he’d, lake, shoot me, y’gnaw. But I told um, “He will not shoot me.”

It’s a dangerous situation, though, Gazza, isn’t it?

Lissen. A’ve just been in a car crash, hit a wall at nanety male an owwa. A’ve survaived that. Gnawun may luck he’d probly miss.

So what you’re saying is, you want to go in there, you want to help negotiate?

A’ve got a jacket, a’ve got a dressun goan, a’ve got some chicken, a’ve got some bread, a’ve got a can of lawga, a’ve got a fission rod, a've got my fission rod, and am willun to sit down and dish out, "Moaty! It's Gazza! Whay-aye!” And a guarantee if I shout his name out — “Am heeya!” — we can sit and chat, and me and him can sit and chat, a little bit of fission, and all a’d tell um, ad say, “Moaty, listen....”

So you could sort it out and have a man-to-man chat with him — two pals on the riverbank?

Yeah, two friends on the riverbank from Newcastle… look, listen, A’d be just, ya nur, “Put the gun aware, thruh it in the rivva,” sayun, “Look, Mawty, the worst of the worst, ya might get a twelve-yair stretch. The Pleece are not gonna kill ya.” Cause a nur he’s willun to give in now, cause I think whatever he was on, it’s worn off. A’d say, “The Pleece are not gonna kill ya.” He might do a twelve-yair stretch, obvisslee, for killun someone, which is not very naice, but he did it because obvisslee he was high on drugs probly, rate? For good behaviour he’d get oat after six yairz.

Paul, have you been in touch with him recently?

Naw, because a’ve been in hospital.

When did you last talk to him?

Well, a seen um a suppose a year and a half ago when a was in Newcastle.

When you spoke to him then, how was he?

How was he? Sounza bell. Nowt wrang with um. He’s a boansa, he’s a good lad, he’s a hard guy, he’s a jettilman, but it’s not naice when his girlfriend ran off with anotha guy.

Gazza, thank you very much for talking to us on Real Radio tonight.

Thank you very much, and do us a favour?

Go on....

Send a cheque through the purst, ha ha.... Unnly jerkun.

Just turn round, will you? I want to read your shirt

At some point during this World Cup I want to sit bolt upright and go "Who the fuck is that?" I want to cross my fingers hoping a player will turn round in close-up so I can see how his name - which I'd never heard in my life before until the commentator just garbled it - is written on the back of his shirt.

All I ask is to be pleasantly surprised by a player at the World Cup. Is that really such a tall order?

Only three players have managed to squeeze an "ooh" out of me so far, spurring a frisson of excitement every time they got the ball. One of them was Leo Messi, arguably the only player since Maradona who surprises you if he doesn't get you to go "ooh". The other two - with names that would make a cracking pair of competing soap powders, as it happens - were Özil and Elia, playing for Germany and Holland, respectively.

They both impressed me, yes, but did they surprise me? Not really, no. I'd had a good idea of what to expect for several months during all the pre-tournament build-up. (I hardly devour the sports press, but they were hard to miss: both had been touted - along with four hundred and eighty-seven others - as candidates to fill the slot at Barcelona that Thierry Henry is expected to vacate this summer.)

I note with dismay that, apart from the Spanish players who I watch every week (sorry, Jesús Navas, but you've been a known entity for years), only Cristiano Ronaldo plus a supporting cast of ten and Dunga’s notoriously ooh-lite Brazil remain ready to set their wares out on the table for our delectation. It looks increasingly as though - unless the Dear Leader in Pyongyang has something up his cowpat-brown sleeve - my dream of being surprised by a player at this World Cup will be unrealised.

Thanks, YouTube. Thanks a fat lot.

Edward G. Robinson's banana kick

Having watched the first three matches of the World Cup, I've got a "little man inside", like Edward G. Robinson's in Double Indemnity, and he's starting to whisper that there's something here that doesn't square.

It's not the schedule-shredding kick-off times – "No, dear, I'm afraid I can't do the weekly shop; aren't you aware that dark horses Greece are up against ever-unpredictable South Korea?" It's not the aural migraine of the "atmosphere-enhancing" vuvuzelas. It's not even the flying FIFA logo that announces, with all the elegance of an Allied Carpets advert, the eighth ultra-slomo replay of a ball trundling disconsolately into touch three minutes into the first half. No, it's none of that.

Deep, deep breath.

It's the football. It's not very good, is it? In the second half of last night's lifeblood-vacuuming France-Uruguay match I placed my hand over my heart and asked myself a question. Is this really any better than watching Coventry City versus Everton (or, more likely in my case, its equivalent: Mallorca versus Racing Santander)? Unless I could say "Yessiree, Bob!" faster than Thierry Henry falls over clutching a random body part, shouldn’t I be doing something more satisfying, if not productive, with my time?

But I stuck with it to the miserable nil-nilly end. Of course I did.

I'm convinced that we have an image of the World Cup that's not unlike our image of our body shape: burned at some point in the increasingly distant past into non-editable ROM in our brains. For me - someone who'd be pushed to describe himself as even a late-summer chicken - that image consists of a bunch of Thornton's-fudge-coloured men wearing bleedy yellow and blue on an even bleedier Subbuteo-green pitch, strolling rings (running was a development that would only come much later) around an abject shower of lumbering Europeans. What exotic planet did these marvellous creatures come from? What was this strange magic that they wove? Did you see that free kick? It actually curved in the air! Did you see that move? Five passes and the ball never left the ground!

Of course Pele is the greatest player of all time. How could he not be? We only ever saw him play for three weeks every four years. We had to imagine all the rest while we were watching Sunderland in the mud.

Now, the world's half-decent players are so familiar to us we're sick of the sight of most of them. We're terminally over-Tevezed and all Drogba’d out. And, let's face it, not even los supercracks – those inhabitants of football's Mount Olympus who are usually referred to by TV pundits as "the likes of yer Messis and Ronaldos" - are, while playing with a group of semi-strangers, likely to come up with anything that we don't see them doing for their European clubs twice a week.

That's what Edward G's little man inside has been saying, anyway. But he's not alone in there. He has to compete with that little lad and his gaudy, bleedy blues, greens and yellows, like a watercolour in the rain. And that's why, hope against hope, I'll be there for Algeria-Slovenia tomorrow, on the off chance it might unveil, to a world enraptured, a 21st-century equivalent of Rivellino's banana kick.

Game of the Day?

Barcelona's Lionel Messi may miss Inter Milan game

So says the BBC website. Although, as far as I know, Messi isn't missing his game at all. It's the same as it ever was: one of sewing the ball to his left boot, wrong-footing opponents, instantly changing pace, laying on surgical through-balls or chipping it over Iker Casillas's head.

Subbuteo is a game. Barcelona v. Inter Milan is a match.

Oh, while we're at it, calling him "Lionel Messi" is like referring to "Robert Charlton", "James Greaves" or "Kenneth Dalglish". On Messi's website, on his autograph and on his FC Barcelona data sheet it says his first name is "Leo". (Although maybe this is just the UK media's revenge for the Spanish media's decades-long insistence on "John Benjamin Toshack".)

Lies, damned lies and Google stats

I can and did walk away from being called (deep breath) "ridiculous", "sanctimonious", "not as capable as he thinks he is", "smarmy", "the Leader" of a "cult”, "on his high horse", "over-inflated", "deluded”, "pompous”, "Spoilt Bastard", "big-headed", "incompetent" and "smug”. What I can't walk away from is being accused of "telling lies" and then - just in case I didn’t get the message - "outright lies", followed by "lies, for Heaven's sake!" (the caps lock is probably coming next).

First, I said that Googling "unadvisably" - AKA the Adverb From Hell (AFH) - brought up a host of hits from a bunch of eminent authors and publications, from Milton to the present day. And indeed it does - with over six hundred citations in the Google Books corpus alone (to give you an idea of how conclusive that is, that’s twenty times as many citations as come up for its first cousin "ill-judgedly", a word that Fay Weldon has used in print without anyone accusing her of not knowing bad writing from good).

Second, I said that the AFH was in The Concise Oxford Dictionary. And indeed it is — or rather "unadvisable" and "advisably" are, but with this note in the "Using this Dictionary" section:

The inflection of nouns, verbs, adjectives and adverbs is given when it is irregular, or when, though regular, it causes difficulty

That, in case it needs spelling out (and in this case I fear it probably does), means that an adverb won't be included if it’s regular, as the AFH is, and causes no difficulties, as the AFH doesn't - or at least managed not to for several hundred years until they started braying "It's not a word!" at it on the Internet.

I can't even remember why I used the AFH in the first place. It's certainly not a word I bandy about in my everyday conversation. I assume I may have wanted to avoid using another adjective beginning with an "i" in the sentence it appeared in, or something subconsciously style-driven of a similar sort. Hell, it may even have been a typo, and I let it stand because I knew full well that, while not particularly common, it's a perfectly kosher word - as Google Books and dictionaries then more than confirmed.

So there we have it. More lies than you can shake your dic at. Six hundred and eight of them, in fact.

To paraphrase the bloke who inadvertently started this whole surreal and sorry saga: fuck off, middlerabbit.

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