barcelona's was no victory for football

so, according to the incomparable sid lowe in the guardian, the spanish press has reacted at barca's victory last night with joy and, essentially, self-righteousness. 

"god writes straight with crooked lines" said Alfredo Relano, whilst his AS colleague Fabian Ortiz claimed that "barcelona's footballing philosophy deserved it". "football defeated anti-football" proclaimed josep maria casanovas.

nonsense. 

style means nothing; victories are not deserved but earned. this game was nothing to do with footballing pedigree but everything to do with injustice - a victory secured through refereeing incompetence. there is nothing to be celebrated here. the game as a whole is devalued when such important games are reduced to farce. what defeated "anti-football" wasn't footballing genius - it was chance, the sheer chance that was presented to them by a man out of his depth. this is something to be embarrassed about, not celebrated. this was precisely what football - and sport - never needs. victories that make a mockery of the principle of fair & equal competition. 

for barca, their defence was yet again proved utterly fallible. if drogba had ever developed a good first touch to accompany his irrepressible physicality, they would have been cooked: whenever chelsea launched an attack they looked like scoring. barcelona were frankly shambolic at times, and even going forward there were no fireworks. nothing marking them out as the best team of all time. chelsea defended, but cech had few saves to mark. the genius displayed in their weak domestic league only served to underline that this is a flat-track bully if ever there was one, preying on the weak, slow and slothful, happy to tear into teams who afford them space and who have neither the nous or strength to defend against their pinpoint passing. 

chelsea were not that. they defended with rigour and tackled with venom. they refused to back down. and why should they? when have chelsea ever engaged in "pure" attacking football? they would have lost by 6 goals if they had tried to imitate barcelona's model. so who expects them to do so? by what demented rationale is there only one justifiable way to play football? it is, of course, bizarre, the crowing of a partisan crowd enabled by a referee incompetent enough to utterly ruin a game and encouraged by a chelsea side who dared to ignore any precepts of style, who dared to reject the omnipotence of barca's approach. 

what a truly awful spectacle.