I, like you reading this now, am a fan of football. Many of you will also be a fan of beautiful football, that of which Barcelona have been praised for countless times. Indeed, their play is admirably graceful and magnificently elegant with splendid passing and exquisitely dominant attacking play. It is something that many clubs around the world aspire to be like, with Arsenal and Arsene Wenger trying their own style of beautiful passing to create the perfect goal. However, we all saw a far uglier side to their football last week in the "El Clasico" - the first leg of their Champion's League semi-final against Real Madrid.For those who have watched the fixture before in recent times, it will have come as no surprise. It would have come as no surprise that certain players were falling on the floor as if they had been shot, rolling around on the grass as if they were on the verge of death, and screaming in absolute agony as if someone had repeatedly kicked them in the stomach with steel toe capped boots. It was a disgrace. Yet nothing was done to punish the players who were in blatant wrong.
Real Madrid, knowing that they have little chance of winning the tie thanks to the sublime Lionel Messi, resorted to accusations that some Barcelona players had been racist to their defender, Marcelo by calling him a monkey. Of course, if that is true, there must be enquiries; UEFA cannot simply sweep the matter under the carpet like no doubt they would love to do. In response however, Pep Guardiola said something quite amazing. It actually made me laugh a little in exasperation. He leapt to the defence of his player Sergio Busquets by saying:
“I know these kind of players, all of them. They are an example of professionalism, of honesty. They love the values of the sport.
“They know we play for the rest of the world. Of course they can make mistakes but as a human, they are an example as a player of Barcelona, as players of Spain.”Professionalism? Honesty? Was this not the player who was rolling around on the floor in the first leg after jumping on a Real's player's back? Replays showed that there was no contact on his face, yet he persisted to clutch it in pain and suffering, and even required medics on the field to cure his complete and utter lie of an injury. How can he possibly "love the values of the sport" when he is purposely attempting to get a fellow professional sent off for doing nothing wrong?
Guardiola goes on to say that his side play for world, and Busquets sets an example for the players of Barcelona and Spain. What kind of example does faking injuries to get other people unfairly in trouble set? When the children of Barcelona, the children of Spain, and the children watching anywhere in the world see him do what he did, it suddenly makes them start to think that perhaps this behaviour is acceptable when in fact, it is the very behaviour that we do not want to see in football.
I have never had a problem with Guardiola before, but those words wound me up. It is a blatant ignorance of the facts that a lot of his players are clear cheats, who in their competitiveness, will attempt to shamelessly con the referee into thinking that they have been the subject of red-card worthy tackles. In view of hundreds of high definition camera's, which will tell us all whether there is contact or not, it is unprincipled, and unfair.
Guardiola added that he “was getting sick of playing Madrid” because of all the noises off the pitch. Well that is something I can agree on. I'd much rather watch Arsenal, Manchester United and the rest of the Premier League who, though far from perfect, and not free from diving and cheating, do have some restraint on their diving practice on the pitch, and get on with playing football - entertaining football. Arsenal, United and the rest may not have the inch perfect passing and extraordinary attacking force as Barcelona and sometimes Madrid do, but I'll be glad when this semi-final is over, so we can all watch some football free from so much blatant cheating.
