Only the rarest of sporting performances leaves a spectator with the feeling that it isn't merely high art, it's also the most just outcome. Barcelona's 3-1 victory over Manchester United in the Champions League final at Wembley will resonate for a long time with every lover of football. It showcased everything that's great about the Spanish club, and, in so doing, drew attention to the relationship between form and function. Football Club Barcelona doesn't endeavour to just win; victory must be achieved by playing attractive football. It's the most difficult objective to attain in sport, the marriage of beauty and dominance. Barcelona has achieved just that. What's more, it has done it with home-grown talent, avoiding for the most part the transfer-market spending top European clubs undertake as a matter of course. Lionel Messi, Xavi, and Andres Iniesta, three of the world's finest, are graduates of La Masia, Barcelona's youth academy, as are first-team players Pedro, Sergio Busquets, Gerard Pique, Carlos Puyol, and Victor Valdes. Coach Pep Guardiola is another alumnus. Is it any wonder that the slick, imaginative one-touch game Barcelona plays — ‘tikki takka,' as it's affectionately known — appears natural and intuitive?
The ease of Barcelona's style, which was shaped by the great Johan Cruyff, belies the effort expended to produce it. Not only is the possession-based play physically demanding, requiring persistent pressing so the ball may be swiftly won back; it is also mentally exhausting, for space has constantly to be found. The only team that has had any degree of success against Guardiola's Barcelona — Jose Mourinho's Internazionale Milan, last year's European champion — did so by manipulating space expertly. Knowing it had little chance if it attacked the ball, Inter willingly gave it up and ‘parked the bus,' which is to say it compressed the last one-third of the pitch defensively so Barcelona wouldn't find a way through. Mourinho attempted a similar strategy with Real Madrid this year, but Guardiola and Barcelona had learnt well. When a team attempted to engage Barcelona as an equal, as English champion Manchester United did, it was hopelessly outplayed. United's manager, Sir Alex Ferguson, not prone to easy praise, said Barcelona, which had also beaten his side in the 2009 Champions League final, was the best he had seen. This final will also be remembered for Messi's luminosity, which far from outshining the rest of Barcelona actually showed it in its best light. But the defining image of the Spanish club's spirit will be that of Eric Abidal, the defender who had recovered from a tumour to start the final, accepting the trophy for his teammates.
