Soccer Denied

The Champions League Final last night saw a good match up between two top notch teams: Arsenal and Barcelona. This was the best of matches pitting the best of teams -- only it wasn’t.

You see, the game should have been about the most important 22 people on the field: the players. Unfortunately, the one person who should have been invisible decided to make his presence known, and the soccer match stopped being the classic soccer match it could have been.

The referee decided to send off Arsenal goalie (Lehmann, who will start for Germany in the World Cup) in the 18th minute. Lehmann tripped Eto’o just outside the box, but the ball continued forward as a pass that was netted by Barcelona. Had the ref decided to call the Advantage and let play continue, Lehmann would not have denied Barcelona the goal-scoring opportunity through his actions. Instead the ref blew the whistle, which meant he had to send off the goalie.

Barcelona missed the ensuing free kick and we missed seeing a beautiful, competitive game after that.

The gaffes continued. Towards the end of the half, Arsenal overcame the odds and took the lead, but only after a free kick was awarded for a diving non-foul. Late in the second half Barcelona scored from what looked like an offside position.

If Barcelona had been allowed the goal in the 18th minute and the GK hadn’t been sent off, we’d have had a 1-0 game with two evenly matched teams involved. Instead, we saw an 11-man team unable to score until its short-handed opponent (with its backup GK) was too worn down to offer enough resistance. It wasn't soccer; it was a war of attrition. Then, after Barca was able to net a second goal on the exhausted team (due to a gaffe by the backup keeper, who had done admirably to that point), all pretense of soccer was abandoned and we saw a final 13 minutes (with stoppage time) of keep-away.

The match could have been so good. Did the better team win? We’ll never know.