Thursday 28 May 2009

A minute's silence for the death of attacking football

Now is not the time for gloating.


OK, now IS the time for gloating. I had the pleasure of meeting one of this happy band of bloggers in the Hogshead, and exercised the utmost restraint. Emma, unfortunately, was watching the match at a friend's house, hiding behind a wall of alcohol. Now she's running away to America for a week, presumably to take up an interest in baseball.

Seriously though, whom to support was such a no-brainer. In one corner, a corporate entity sponsored by an insurance giant so bankrupt that it's now owned by the US Government. In the other corner, a regional giant which is owned by the community, opposed Franco, and carried the Unicef name where most teams have corporate logos.

It was quite a dull match though - MUFC just had no attack after the first ten minutes. The most exciting bit was Ferguson's 'tetchy' post-match interview…

8 comments:

neal said...

I really enjoyed the game, beautiful, skilky, complex midfield passing. Iniesta was brilliant. The only drawback was that we were in a pub full of Man U fans so I had to restrain my celebrations.

neal said...

Man U were disappointing though, if they could have got one back in the second half there would have been a bit more excitement.

The Plashing Vole said...

OK, some flashes of silky skills from Barcelona, but Ronaldo's tactics were reminiscent of a certain Potteries team in years gone by: hopeful punt from upfield, and he was damned if he'd change until it worked.

Still, all the Man U fans seemed quite gracious in defeat - unlike Alex Ferguson.

neal said...

The vole has just pointed out that I've invented a new word - Skilky, a contraction of silky skills.

Newton Heath 18 said...

I have many things to say among them:
The better team won
The more skilled team won
Man Utd did not have one outstanding player who was prepared to take control of the game
Man Utd finishing was at best poor
I am disappointed they did not give Barca or their fans a game which was deserving of the occassion.

I am suprised the Vole has not drawn attention to Platini's obvious glea that an English team had not won.

The Plashing Vole said...

I agree Emma - there was a weird MU attitude - encapsulated by the decision to send Scholes on to hurt people. I don't like Platini's attitude though, and couldn't hear any commentary in the Hogs anyway.

Benjamin. said...

It was good to see you; I was stunned by the sucker punch from Samuel Eto'o and walked around in a daze. But as I said, I'm glad you were enjoying it! Agreed on the commentary front and everything Emma said.

By the way, I sampled Hogshead's culinary delights once again which arrived 30 minutes late just before kickoff. I had the Chicken and Wiltshire Ham pie and Natural Blues had the chicken curry. Fully recommended (apart from the long wait) this sadly appeared to be the highlight of the evening.

The Plashing Vole said...

I didn't realise you were both there. I too had a belated pie. It had all the energy and verve of a Man U midfield.