Quick question: Ever imagined or watched Wolverine give a man a Rectal Exam?
I recently saw a procedure that came close. Permit me to tell you about my findings.
Look away I beseech you Barcelona fans, you’re unlikely going to like this.
It was the night of 14th February, 2017. Ideally I was supposed to be nursing with a partner, the wounds from the arrows of cupid the god of love, you know the whole dinner, candlelight and soft classic music business. But let’s just conclude that logistics didn’t offer me her blessings to venture into all of those stuff.
Myself and 987,654,321 (Relax. I made that number up. Just chose to write the numericals backwards for fun) other football pundits, Sofa football experts, pretend experts and virtually everyone who talks about football in our collective wisdom handed the PSG-FC Barcelona tie to Barcelona right from when they were drawn together.
The wisdom was quite simple. These money-spinning French chaps had their level but the elegant football-playing Barcelona guys were on another level entirely. One with not many other rivals. Plus a history of meetings between both teams favored the Spanish giants.
But like Brexit, Donald Trump’s election win and Angelina Jolie’s divorce, there was a wicked plot twist on the horizon about to mess with our football senses.
Summary? As you may have seen on your TV Screens or found out later, Barcelona got summarily thrashed without mercy by PSG. 4 unreplied goals! Whipping so bad, PSG’s goalie’s jersey looked like it just arrived from the drycleaner’s.
So here is the UEFA-unapproved player ratings for you.
Marc-Andre Ter Stegen: Commendable performance really. At least he did accurately pick out the ball from his net the 4 times PSG scored. Made to look like a leaky pipette by an ineffective defence. Unfortunate.
Pique and Umtiti: We saw them on the pitch. I would say the “P” in Psychology was way more useful than them but that’d be callous so let’s just leave it as “They played the match”
Jordi Alba: Like a perfectly constructed circle, there was no point with this guy on the pitch. Di Maria cut inside him like he was absent.
Sergi Roberto: Just another rookie wrapped in an amateur inside of a clueless excuse for a Right Back. Draxler could have blindfolded himself, amputated his stronger lower limb and still successfully dribbled past this guy per time.
Andres Iniesta: Very cool and calm as always but couple of passes to the corner flag, throw-in lines and PSG players have us suspecting a mild case of Retinopathy. Easy Pa Andres.
Andre Gomes: Really no problems with this guy except of course that he has not the slightest clue what on earth he’s supposed to be doing on a football pitch. Our advice? Try Ostrich farming man. Better use of your talents.
Sergio Busquets: An overdose on some paralytic is my straightforward diagnosis for this guy’s performance. Verratti and Rabiot (both considerably shorter) ran rings around him like it was nothing. An absent presence or/and a present absence.
Messi and Suarez: This is a tough one. I suggest we adopt the official CIA approach to conundrums like this. We can neither confirm nor deny that both men even made it to the pitch. We can however confidently tell you their names were on the team sheet. Missing in Action.
Neymar: The only player whose head was present in that stadium along with his body. Fair performance. We will not talk about his ludicrous dive for now.
Rafinha and Ivan Rakitic: Would pay any amount to have an idea of what on God’s green earth was going through Luis Enrique’s mind when he sent these two on. Pointless.
The return leg of the tie is in a few weeks. My advice? Don’t bet against Barcelona. It’s all fun and games until Messi slices through their defence like a scalpel through the layers of the abdomen. It’s however great to see them lose a bit. Those of us whose teams lose regularly do not have two heads.
Until then, love, live and enjoy football effortlessly. Bye for now.
