I'm finding it very difficult to get excited about tomorrow nights match for some reason, and I don't know why. After years and years of trying to get to the Champions league final, now they are there, it's just a game against the dullest fucking chelsea team in a million years, in fucking moscow. It's not very exotic is it?
manchester isn't the capital of a grim totalitarian quasi fascist state, 700 miles beyond the closest european capital. There are 000's of empty seats at this final. This hasn't happened in a very long time.
I don't think that man utd being in the final is part of the reason for my lack of enthusiasm for the match. Chelsea definitely are though.
The word is that little Ashley is going to be fine. So lets check out his pupils tomorrow as he goes on the pitch.
I'm not particularly giddy about this either. I probably will be should Manchester United win, however, but that's more to do with my status as the token, professional Northerner among the pub full of Chelsea fans where I occasionally drink.
I think I see the problem here: If you are not a supporter of either club, you probably/possibly dislike both with a passion (youknow what I mean.)
So you probably wish both of them could lose and when one does, you will be very happy that they lost, but on the other hand, be very pissed off that the other shower of bastards won.
Its a dilemma.
I AM looking forward to it. I dislike Chelsea slightly less than Man U, so will be hoping that they dont lose.
*BUT I reserve the right to change my mind if another of those overpaid tossers gets on my nerves before the match.
I wouldn't bet on the thousands of empty seats, aiatl (as Harry and I have been discussing on the "learn from history" thread).
I fully understand Tony's G14 fatigue, but think that "all domestic" finals are by their very nature less interesting than even repeat match-ups between clubs from different leagues. There is a whiff of Game 39 about the entire enterprise that is hard to deny.
That said, what made the Real Madrid-Valencia final more interesting was that it was Valencia's first, and this one at least as that much going for it as well.
Ursos, I know I've droned on about the misgivings of the CL on these pages for several years now, but my essential point is that a great pleasure of European Cup (as was) was the 'big nights' of the tournaments' heavyweights slugging it out from, say, the quarter final stages onwards.
You now get those match ups on a regular basis from September in the group stages. There is no sense of anticipation, of anything remotely resembling unique experience.
The whole Chelsea-Liverpool semi-final is getting very predictable as well. The only thing unpredictable about this year, was Utd actually getting to a semi, and then actually winning it, for the first time in almost a decade. For a team who have practically dominated English football for 15 years, being in only one previous final seems like a chronic underperformance. Some say they were very lucky to win that one as well, considering the manner in which it happened.
It is sad when matches like Chelsea-Barcelona get played as often as Chelsea-Newcastle. In the old days you could go a decade without playing a particular club. The group stages also remove the likeliness of "shock" results, and make it as unpredictable as who will be in the Premiership Top 4 next season.
Money talks unfortunately, so to make it change we have to stop watching it. How likely is that?
... grim totalitarian quasi fascist state, 700 miles beyond the closest european capital. There are 000's of empty seats at this final. This hasn't happened in a very long time.
manchester isn't the capital of a grim totalitarian quasi fascist state, 700 miles beyond the closest european capital. There are 000's of empty seats at this final. This hasn't happened in a very long time.
I watched the 1999 CL final with a mate and his brother, who I hadn't met before. Now, obviously the majority of the game was not seat-edge stuff, but his brother sat through that and the bombshell finale with an absolutely impassive, expressionless look on his face. I said to my mate afterwards, how surprised I was that his brother didn't so much as bat an eyelid when the late goals went in and my mate replied yes, he's on antidepressants.
I get the feeling I might be watching the entirety of tonight's game in much the same state, without the excuse of being on antidepressants.
This might be the first ever European Cup final that I've voluntarily missed simply because I can't imagine anything happening in it that could please me.
Whenever I think I might want one or other to win for reasons relating to the grotesqueness of the other, I immediately realise how equally horrible it would be if they won, and then I realise that whoever wins it will be horrible.
Add that to the fact that contests between the two - and the frequency with which they happen is another reason to be thoroughly bored by this match-up - are nearly always extremely dull, and I struggle to find any reason at all to get remotely enthused by this.
And there's also the fact that, regardless of the teams playing tonight, I'm far, far more interested in the outcome of two matches being played tomorrow, thus taking the shine off it anyway.
This might be the first ever European Cup final that I've voluntarily missed simply because I can't imagine anything happening in it that could please me.
Oh look children, for fuck sake, its the European Cup final, so just suck it up. Your team not in? Thats because they got beaten.
You dont like the finalists? Well, ok, who does? Tough. You know you will be strangely drawn to it.
Forget the hype: its Chelsea v Man U... it may well be shit, and the hype is bollocks, but its still the 2 best teams in England about to have a go at each other. Sit back and laugh, or not. DEAL WITH IT. Man U arent bad, and if Chelsea pass, they will be pretty good too.
I had to turn over from Radio 5 this morning such was the blanket coverage from Moscow, Manchester, London, airports and anywhere else that was vaguely connected. The straw that broke the camel's back was an interview with Andrei Kanchelkis' son, for heaven's sake.
I shall be in a curry house with my wife and parents and mother-in-law tonight, thus avoiding the whole farrago.
Chelsea 1-0 (Drogba on 67 minutes, bundling it into the net in an undignified scramble from a long punt into the box), I reckon.
Ger, I can really enjoy a football match in which I have no emotional investment as long as it's a decent game of football.
If I do have emotional investment in the outcome, then I can only really enjoy it if a desired outcome of some sort can happen. In this case, the emotional investment I have is the knowledge that whatever happens, I team I dislike will win. I won't really be able to enjoy it either way, even if it's a cracking game, probably.
Did you enjoy Nach Novo's corking strike in the Old Firm game before last? I can't imagine you did even though it was objectively a wonderful bit of football. For me it's like that for both teams playing. Is it really that difficult to understand?
Besides, as I say, the only football I really care about this week is happening tomorrow night.
I shall be in a curry house with my wife and parents and mother-in-law tonight, thus avoiding the whole farrago.
I went to a curry house with my brother to avoid That Night In Barcelona and half way through two waiters brought in a fucking television set. So we went to a pub
that we knew didn't have a telly, and even then the cook came charging out screaming his head off at the end.
Oh what a night that was, with all the Sittingbourne Reds dancing in the streets.
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