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Sunday, 29 May 2011

CHAMPION LEAGUE FINAL 2011: BARÇA BEATS MANCHESTER UNITED AT LONDON'S WEMBLEY STADIUM



Barça Football Club won last night their fourth Champion League Final against Manchester United at London's Wembley Stadium. Here's how British media have reported the news:


[guardian.co.uk]

Champions League press reaction: 'This Barça is the best team in the world'
• Spanish press places Barcelona in the pantheon of greats.

The Spanish press were united in hailing Barcelona's victory over Manchester United in the Champions League final as a landmark for the club and for European football. As they groped for superlatives nearly all the newspapers found space for a headline containing Sir Alex Ferguson's quote: "No one has given us such a hiding."
The notoriously madridista Marca saluted the victors as "A dream Barça", with all its echoes of Johan Cruyff's Dream Team of the 1990s. Indeed the paper referred to the "Pep Team" after their coach, Pep Guardiola, and described their football as "excellent".

La Vanguardia did not stint on the hyperbole with the headline: "Barcelona enters Olympus with the gods."

El País proclaimed: "Wembley falls in love with Barça." Recalling the club's first European Cup victory at the same stadium in 1992, the paper observed: "From Wembley to Wembley Barcelona has undergone an extraordinary process of maturing ... There is no better defence of an idea than victories, but there is no better victory than the fact that the stability of a club does not depend exclusively on a final result, but on a route map. That is the greatness of this Barça, which, make no mistake, will also be the principles that will enable them to vaccinate themselves in defeat."

The already pro-Barcelona Mundo Deportivo was beside itself and felt the best way to express its enthusiasm was by placing four exclamation marks after the word "Champions" (in English).

The celebrating Barcelona fans, the culés, have taken up José Mourinho's pointed question – with its suggestion of skulduggery – of "why?" do Barcelona keep winning as a chant: "por qué?". El Mundo Deportivo produced a long list of reasons why, including Guardiola's brilliance, David Villa's conclusive third goal, Eric Abidal's return from life-threatening surgery, etc...

In Barcelona 132 people, including 37 local police, were injured in disturbances as up to 50,000 people celebrated the victory on the streets. Police made 84 arrests for public order offences around Plaça de Catalunya, Las Ramblas and the Arc de Triomf which come in the wake of weeks of unrelated street protests in the Catalan capital.


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