TV VIEW:SOMETIMES IT is embarrassing to be so in thrall to football. A Champions League final so evocatively full of sporting possibilities will have wormed its way into even the most blinkered anti-football psyches over the last week, a wonderful opportunity then for those who just don't get what the rest of us see in this lunatic obsession to be converted, or at least to tone down their condescending pity. And what do we get: a fat guy in a blanket pretending to be a Roman Emperor.
That’s because last night’s game was in Rome. That’s a big leap to make, isn’t it? Rome and Roman: it must be toga-time. People have been to college to come up to this level of inspiration. But RTÉ’s big production number to introduce this “gladiatorial” contest went far beyond that.
“The invincible armies of Catalonia and Britannia in supreme battle,” quothed fake Nero against a fluorescently eye-watering background. “Mars, the God of war, seeks further gratification,” our hero proceeded, as the London Symphonic seemed to hit fifth gear in their Wagnerian engine. They were only put-putting in neutral compared to Nero though. “Who can satisfy Venus – God of love – for the beautiful game!”
And there was more.
“Like Saturn, this is the time to gather strength!!” chirped our pink Caesar, whose Tiberian accent occasionally slipped into something closer to the Boyne, like maybe Drogheda. “Led into battle by leaders with a glimpse of immortality!!! . . . In a battle for the ultimate prize!!!!!”
Is it any wonder non-sporty types just shake their heads in pity at the bloated, hyperbolic campness with which football, and indeed most sports, try to clothe themselves. And it wasn’t just out in Montrose. In Rome, Andrea Bocelli got all operatic as a cross between a nymph and some sort of centurion ambled on to the pitch lugging the trophy.
It looked like how taste translates to Las Vegas. Andrea could count his blessings.
Thank God, then – yes, that God – eventually a match broke out. In fairness, Bill O’Herlihy did his best beforehand to return us all to somewhere where there was a hint of gravitational pull to get us back to some sort of reality.
“The two teams have arrived. Everything is ready,” he declared, determinedly under-the-top. And with typical contrariness, the panel went the other way. The possibility of a classic was before us all, they said. John Giles – normally Oriental in his inscrutable determination to be unimpressed – declared: “I think it will be a cracking game.”
He was half right. It was a cracker all right, but in terms of performance rather than competition. Barcelona were a team of virtuosos, even their much-maligned back four. United looked like they’d read too much of their own pre-match publicity, maybe even imagining themselves in big towels with tiaras on their heads and fleets of dusky maidens dropping grapes into their gaping maws: but enough about Ronaldo.
What was remarkable, though, was even after the first half Eamon Dunphy still fancied United’s chances. Just so long as Tevez came on as a sub, like a butty Che riding his motorbike to the rescue. Sure enough Tevez appeared on screen, ready to come on.
“He will terrify Barcelona and United will win!” crowed Dunphy, whose ability to pick the wrong one from two is fast approaching the George Hook level.
His pal Giles predicted it better, mournfully saying: “They are actually giving Man United a lesson in how to play the game.”
Through it all Ronnie Whelan grew with confidence the same way Xavi co did in Rome, the same arena in which Whelan won a European Cup final with Liverpool a quarter of a century earlier. The sole panellist to side with Barcelona’s commitment to attack, he smiled like a cat who had just tucked into a canary.
“They have good players and that’s all I looked at,” Ronnie said afterwards, leaving his colleagues to lick their wounds.
“It’s a great victory for football,” shrugged Dunphy. “And my bookmaker I must say!”
Bill, though, decided to twist the knife further and ask the old pals why they had got it so wrong.
“Man United were poor and Alex Ferguson must take a lot of the responsibility for that with the team he put out on the park,” grumbled Giles, pointing to the lack of Scholes and Tevez from the start.
“He will regret it,” agreed Dunphy.
But after a match in which the most persuasive argument of all for football came out on the pitch, there is no doubt who will have the most regrets from last night’s production: Nero, it’s time to cross the Boyne.
