No More Fun And Games

This isn't a "how we could have won it" post, because, well, Barcelona seemed pretty irresistible, not sure we, or anyone, would have stopped them playing like that.  It's more of a post that wonders whether we didn't perhaps add to that aura of irresistibility in the build-up to the game.

My point is essentially that we probably got a bit carried away on the whole romance of the thing - the "Football Final" the "beautiful game" at Wembley, scene of the '68 triumph.  I think we played into their hands, wanting to play football.  Not that I'm trying to suggest that we should have played Mourinho type spoiling tactics, but we could have indulged in some pre-match "mind-games"*.  Not let it be quite so obvious that we wanted a football game.  Sir Alex talked up the game as a football contest, while Mourinho would have made it a war of attrition.  I know how everyone post-game was talking about how it had put a smile back on the footballing world, made up for FIFA scandals, but we lost.  It's all very nice making the world happy, but what about us.

Again I'm not saying we should have gone out there to play Mourinho style, we play football, after all.  No, it was just the overall chumminess of the pre-match played into their hands.  They knew they were going to get their type of game.  It was even made fairly obvious that we were going to play 4-4-2, which I'm sure they must have loved.

Just a few remarks from Sir Alex on diving, or influencing referees would have gone a long way, or planting rumours of a very defensive line-up, with midfield enforcers and threats of a physical game, especially after we were given the card-shy ref.  Just anything to make them think, make them worry, make them sweat.

In the end we may have won the hearts of a few, and made the football world smile, fleetingly, before more scandal came on top of more scandal, but we lost the match.

*Though mind games is a very overused phrase.  It comes to the point where after every press conference Sir Alex is accused of playing mind games.  Like the Ryan Giggs thing, refuses to answer one question and he's creating a siege mentality for the final.  Whatever.  The whole siege mentality thing is so overplayed.  The amount of times we've been accused of that this season we'd be living in caves if it was true.  I wonder if it even has an affect any more, or whether there's a certain reflexivity among the players, "There's Sir Alex on with the siege mentality again, but if the siege mentality is just a tactic, why does he think we're going to fall for it?  Does he not actually just want to defend us for the sake of defending us, because we're his players.  must it always be about the siege?"