Pundits have a ‘mare with pie in the Sky talk
Cue Jamie Redknapp on Sky Sports yesterday, enthusiastically accentuating the positives of the Da’s boys getting Real Madrid in the Champions League quarter-final draw. The son was arguing that Madrid could be “got at” when, without warning, he dropped his bombshell.
“Real Madrid,” he declared, “are not in the same league as Barcelona.”
Back to the drawing board, everyone.
I suppose we should be grateful that Jamie didn’t insert his favourite word into that sentence, for here is a man who has recently informed viewers “Arsenal are literally dead on their feet” and, even more astonishingly, that “Gareth Bale literally has a third lung”.
That Real Madrid are, indeed, literally in the same league as Barcelona seemed a point lost on Redknapp’s fellow panellists Dwight ‘Always Look On The Bright Side Of Life’ Yorke and Ray ‘Everything Is Beautiful In Its Own Way’ Wilkins. Such is the desensitisation to football cliché in the Sky cockpit that neither had the wit to, metaphorically or even literally, tap their colleague on his shoulder and say: “Can I just stop you there, Jamie old son...”
Instead, both nodded in solemn agreement with his acute observation before arriving at the acrobatic conclusion that Spurs might well be in the same league as Madrid, especially with the second-leg of the quarter-final to be played at a White Hot Lane.
Before, during and after the draw, the other thing all concerned were fully agreed on was that the order of the day had to be ABB — Anyone But Barcelona. Which is fair enough, except that if you harbour even the vaguest hopes of actually winning the damn thing, as opposed to the traditional “bowing out, heads held high at the end of a stirring European adventure”, then chances are you’ll have to overcome the Catalans at some point.
I was in the Stadio Olympico in Rome two years ago, for example, as the Manchester United players trudged off at the final whistle dizzy from being made to chase shadows by Messi and comrades. I don’t recall anyone associated with the Old Trafford club expressing gratitude that they’d only had to play Porto in the quarter-finals.
As it is, the dubious honour of facing Barca at that stage this time around has fallen to Shakhtar Donetsk who will find themselves in the unusual position of being underdogs without the support of neutrals everywhere, on account of the fact that the vast majority of football lovers will want to see the game’s great entertainers stepping out onto the Wembley turf in May.
But if there’s one club left in the competition who can do most to stop Barcelona getting there it’s, well, Barcelona.
Sure, when it all clicks — as in their sensational demolition of Real Madrid this season — they come close to a level of perfection which no other club side in the world can currently hope to reach but, on other days, a marked lack of ruthlessness in dispensing with inferior opposition can render all their dominance meaningless and, as against Arsenal in the last round, leave them vulnerable to a late upset.
For all that, they rightly remain the bookies’ favourites, so that such relief at avoiding them as is doubtless being felt today by Manchester United, Chelsea and Spurs might be more realistically interpreted as a short-term reprieve before the day of execution finally dawns.
Still, the good news for Blighty from yesterday’s proceedings in Nyon is that the pairing of United and Chelsea guarantees England one place in the semis, which is one more than the home of football managed last season.
Not to mention one more than it has managed at the quarter-final stage in the Europa League this term. And here is an historically rare case of England’s difficulty being Ireland’s difficulty.
On Thursday night you could practically hear the dull thud of official heads being banged against desks in Dublin, as the double exit of Liverpool and Manchester City ended English football’s interest in boosting tourism in our beleaguered isle this summer.
As a friend put it: “Poor Paddy, will the sun ever shine on him again?”
Even Rangers managed to miss the boat and, with it, the chance to sample some traditional Irish hospitality at such welcoming establishments as John Stokes’ famous hostelry in Fairview.
Of course, a brave face will be put on the fact that some celebrated European names like Benfica, Porto, Spartak Moscow and PSV Eindhoven are still in the mix for a date with destiny in Dublin on May 18.
And, from a purely footballing point of view, all eight of the remaining teams are certainly capable of serving up a fine spectacle in the Aviva, perhaps even one of a higher technical standard than might have been supplied by Liverpool or Man City.
The problem, as the sage Redknapp might put it, is that they are simply not in the same league.
