What a season it's been for Football Club Barcelona. With the league title and domestic cup already secured last night they deservedly beat Manchester United by 2 goals to nil to lift the European Champions League trophy in Rome.Aside from the opening 8 or 9 minutes Barca dominated the game and thoroughly deserved the win: even Manchester's manager Sir Alex Ferguson admitted that. Ahead of the game most of the English media allowed themselves to get a bit carried away - I heard various 'experts' claim it would be an easy win for Manchester, Barca couldn't defend, Manchester had too many attacking options, Spanish teams can't compete physically with English clubs etc etc. I suspect these views were formed on the basis of 1) watching Barca struggle to get past Chelsea in the semi and 2) watching Liverpool hammer Real Madrid earlier in the competition. How wrong they were.
I watched the game on Sky Sports (rather than the alternative ITV) and - all in all - I thought the coverage was excellent.
I've spoken before about how certain individuals in the broadcast team (presenter and pundits, commentator and analyst) annoy me and I'm sticking with my opinion, but even these guys couldn't (didn't) claim that it was anything other than a deserved victory.
I have no problem with favouritism or bias for the English team from an English broadcaster - it's to be expected that the coverage will be tailored to suit the vast majority of the audience - what I do have a problem with is when my intelligence is insulted by the 'experts' when they claim, for instance, that their team had been harshly treated by the match officials (see my previous comments regarding the semi final!).
On this occasion I felt that the commentary team got the balance just about right although one of the studio pundits nearly lost it when he suggested that Pique should have been sent off for a foul on Ronaldo: point of fact - it wasn't even a foul.
I'm now looking forward watching the DVD of the game with a Catalan commentary to redress the balance of bias.
I don't disagree with much that you say, but I do disagree with the point about the Pique block on Ronald. I think it was a foul, and could've been sent off (not a definite sending off, though)
ReplyDeleteI felt the Pique block fell into the 'I've seen them given' category but by the letter of the law wasn't a foul - Ronaldo knocked the ball past Pique who then stood his ground: no foul in my opinion. To confuse things even further one of the TV pundits said afterwards in support of his view that it was a foul and maybe he should have been sent off '... Pique just stands there'. I guess these grey areas are what make the game so fascinating for us.
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