Diary of a Champion: Part I
3pm I leave Staines office... long way to go and lots of expectations!!!
3:30pm Cool, although a bit crazy, bus driver on the way to Heathrow airport. Half Somalian, half Suomi, go figure... Held a speach on how to make the world a better place and how much certain politicians s*ck! Ended up fist-fiving me when I left the bus: "yo, brotha". Funny guy.
4pm First Arsenal supporters at Heathrow airport. You could even avoid paying exchange commisions if you were an Arsenal supporter at one office...
5:30pm Plane leaving late as always. Then they gave us shitty sandwich. Wasn´t Lufthansa supposed to be a cool airline???
7:45pm Leaving the plane in Frankfurt, connecting flight boarding in 5 mins. I missed the freaking exit, had to go out to the arrivals terminal, then pass a control again and run like 1(?!) frekin' km to be at my gate on time... Good job by the Frankfurt signaling team!!! Clap, clap, clap!
8:30pm Same damn sandwich on the second flight, what the hell? When about 30% of the people pass on something the crew offers FOR FREE you know something´s going wrong!
9:35pm Arrival in time in Paris. You gotta hand this one to the Germans and their timing, orrrrrrrr... now that I´m thinking of it, it might just be Lufthansa, because German trains are THE mess and Germanwings´ timing is poor, too, and it took T-Online like 7 weeks to give me Internet access, and... let´s move on here.
9:37pm Last words of a "Gunner" before disembarking the plane: "All the preassure´s on Barça, I have that feeling, we win, we win 2-1... I mean, we are the underdogs, they have all the responsibility coming into the game." Yep, good argument my friend. It´s good that sports actually is not as much about responsibility and feelings as it is about talent sometimes... But who could blame him, considering how cursed Barça has looked so many times in their history.
11:00pm Watched Madrid loose their last league game at my buddies´ place. Also got to know their boss, Sanyu, who turned out to be "un genio" :) Right after that we started our PES5 mini tournament where the PS2 was conected to a beamer. Now that was aweeesome!! Messi, the Big Final´s absentee, just destroyed Real Madrid in one of the games, pretty cool...
Wednesday
10:30am Woke up feeling a bit nervous already
12:00pm Went out for a walk in Paris, with my buddy the Canary... Lots of Barça fans all over the place and you could sense a certain feeling o euphoria amongst them, never a good omen before a final.
1:30pm First verbal exchange (well, sort of...) with Barça supporerts wearing a "Catalonia is not Spain" flag. Me: "Arriba España, cooooño"... which inevitabely led to their angry "Who´s that f*cker?!?" gesture. I guess those fools haven´t figured out their nationality yet, maybe if they checked their passport or ID more often, oh well... Lesson as always here: Don´t ever miss the chance to take the mick out of a separatist.
1:44pm First comments on les parisiennes:
Me: Hmmmmm, lots of cute women here in Paris...
Canary: Yep, much more than in London
Me: ... yeah, but they are more "chaud" in the UK (which eventually turned out to be not true after all)
Canary: Agreed
(May I note here, that his taste is a biiiiiiiiit off sometimes...)
2:05pm Me urging us to find a church and light a candle, just in case... Perplexed look on the Canary´s face.
2:30pm We met Dani (aka Rivers) for lunch. Straaaange waitress. She had no voice, was slow and acted strangely. Either she was flirting or about to collapse after a journey of hard work...
4:40pm We leave for the game. You can feel the tension already. Everyone salutes us on the streets and wishes Barça good luck. It was a bit weird. No other football supporter to be seen anywhere close, people starring at us, kids telling mums "look Barcelona"... It felt like being in the wrong place at the wrong time, almost like the Final had taken place already or so...
5:20pm We´re lost!
5:23pm It starts raining a bit...
5:29pm We find a metro and it seems we have to make 17 changes in order to arrive at the station. That s*cks! Plus I bought a beer and it´s too warm to drink!
5:45pm Christian (formerly known as "The Canary") flirts with a chick in the tube. She speaks Spanish. I urge him to talk to her but he refuses. That´s what happens when you have a girlfriend...
6:05pm Arrival at the stadium, we´re finally there. Arsenal supporters "outchant" everyone else with some of their songs.
6:10pm-7:30pm Circling around the stadium feeling the atmosphere and having some drinks. Two conclusions here: 1) No Barça female supporter is even close to being called cute. 2) If we loose, we jump into one of those brooks close to Saint-Denis.
7:40pm Inside the stadium!!!!!! Great atmosphere already!!!! I have that special "we´re in a Final, I hope we don´t screw it" feeling, just like in 92 against Sampdoria and the 267 times Barça´s basketball team made the Final Four, and then actually lost, between 1988-2003...
8:10pm A rumour´s out there that Iniesta will start on the bench. Ok, can we just maybe start 8-11 as well?? Why????? He´s possibly been the best central midfielder of the world for the past two months and Rijkaard leaves him buried on the bench in th Champions League Final?? Someone please explain that to me!! (PS: I told you that Iniesta would be part of Spain´s World Cup roster some time ago, when barely someone counted him in, well, it was confirmed last week. Look out for him to start for the team from game 2, to never be benched again. He´ll stand out in Germany!! The way he´s playing, fresh, quick, precise, he´s almost unstoppable these days!)
8:35pm Both teams´ lineups are being announced and Barça supporters start clapping when Henry´s name comes up!! I´m shocked!!! WTF??? Why would you chant for the most dangerous guy on the rival team, the guy who potentially could destroy your Championship hopes... Reason is, his name has been linked to Barcelona several time, so what??? We´re in a damn freakin´ Champions League Final here!!! Booooooooooo and shout at any, ANY, opposite player, supporter, coach, assistant coach... well except for the chick on the pictures (see below) :P (just kidding)
And yeah, Iniesta starts on the bench... Why would Rijkaard do this to us? Further, why would a coach who's proven himself of being a reasonable person these years, something rather uncommon in sports, do something like this?? Whatever...
8:43pm Barça fans display the usual "big-occasion-mosaic" with cardboards. Cool to be part of it!!!!
8:48pm The game just started 3 mins ago and Henry is left alone in front of Valdés... who denies him!!!!! Lack of concentration? The curse? Jesus Christ, that was so close, I´m speechless!!! Can anyone call a timeout here?
8:57pm Arsenal is controlling the first minutes of the game...
9:03pm Lehmann is sent of for a foul on Eto´o on a ball through from Ronaldinho, but why didn´t the referee allow Giuly´s goal? What the hell? Lots of confusion here...
9:09pm Barça looks more confortable now playing 11 vs 10. Arsenal is giving all the space of the World to Edmilson who obviously S*CKS!!!! Not one decent pass, nor a shot... and he´s wide open!!! Why is he even on the pitch??? I´m getting nervous in the ranks... By the way, what is Eto´o doing playing left wing!?!?
9:22pm Campbell scores!!! Oh, oh... it didn´t look like a foul though??? Worst thing here, I´m starting to think of my conversation with my friend Jimmy on Monday where he said something like "Barça should clearly win but... what if Arsenal scores like in the 37th minute (no kidding here) and your team starts getting nervous and you´re 1 down after the first half... what then?"
9:29pm Almunia denies Eto´o and the ball hits the post! Dammit!!!! That goal would have been so important. Fans starting to get rather nervous, including myself. I start noticing those "what if" gestures on some of us...
(END OF PART I. More to follow, including the halftime phone call with my dad, the second half action, paris nightlife and much more...)Some other thoughts...
Henry decided to stay at home and play for Arsenal for another four seasons. Fair enough! Barça didn´t really need him to be honest. He´s a great player, yes, but he needs to be in a team playing his style, that is, him being the go to guy and everything evolving around him, and that wouldn´t be the case in Barcelona. He struggled in Turin and was not spectacular either for his national team in their Euro and World Cup successes of 2000 and 1998. Just when he signed for Arsenal and Wenger made him "the man" he responded. I don´t wanna take anything away from him, he´s a great player, no doubts but maybe Arsenal is his place. Expectations would´ve maybe been very high in Barcelona, he wouldn´t have come for cheap either, and we´ve some solif offensive players anyway, so...
Labels: The Ramblings
