Pep’s party met by joy and indifference in press
Thursday 09 April 2009 12:00
Perhaps it’s because there’s a bank holiday in Spain and La Liga Loca can hear birds singing (and coughing) rather than beeping and blaring from cranky commuters.
Perhaps La Liga Loca is all giddied up over the thought of Semana Santa-celebrating, pointy-hat wearing men carrying ten-tonne altars around the streets of Madrid in the biggest display of virgins seen since the Pope’s last picnic.
But just this once, on this fine Thursday morning, a forgiving blog is willing to turn a blind eye to the stuff and nonsense spouted in Sport and Mundo Deportivo and let it pass. But just this once, mind.
As to be expected, both Catalan dailies are a’barn-dancing and a’bopping over Barcelona’s magnificent mauling of their German visitors in the Champions League on Wednesday night.
Another week, another romp for the Dream Boys
“We’re in the semis!” squeals Sport’s headline. “An all powerful Bayern were humiliated by an unstoppable Barcelona,” writes Josep Maria Casanovas in the inside pages.
A jubilant Mundo Deportivo declares the Catalan club to be the best in the business after the 4-0 goal fest at the Camp Nou.
“When you type ‘the best team in Europe’ into Google, it should go directly to FC Barcelona,” writes the paper’s director Santi Nolla.
For once the Barça barmy press is right to fall into a terrific tizz over the events of the previous evening. The papers are simply experiencing what many neutrals perhaps felt within minutes of the kick-off of the Champions League clash - and that’s relief.
Fans in Spain had ranted and raved over the brilliance of Barcelona for months and enjoyed one devastating display after another.
But they knew that this was, in part, down to the all-too-frequent hopelessness of the team’s opposition in La Liga. The fear was that the club would be shown up as all hat and no cattle outside of the game in Spain.
Although Bayern were far from being at their best, Barcelona’s display strongly suggests that Pep’s Dream Boys can strut their free-styling, funky stuff against Johnny Foreigner too.
"If you score a fifth, you have to keep Uli Hoeness"
The Madrid press, for the most part, are quite happy to stick their fingers in their journalistic ears and completely ignore Wednesday night’s result.
AS have chosen to focus on comments by Zidane that he would not rule out a return to Castle Greyskull should Florentino Pérez return to the Real Madrid fold.
Their counterparts, Marca, continue what has been a truly shameful week by relegating Barcelona’s victory to a tiny top corner of the front page and lead their edition with Guti’s paranoid rants and raves from the previous afternoon.
The Catalan’s club’s dominance over their German opponents does not even warrant a mention in their editorial. One can only imagine that had the same result been managed by Madrid then it would have been calling for a public holiday to celebrate the occasion.
Most surprising of all, grown-up paper El Pais has shoved Barcelona’s win towards the bottom of the page on its online version and led with the immensely newsworthy story that its parent company has won a court victory in the Great TV War.
Once again, football fans in Spain have been ignored by a media intent on following its own puerile agenda rather than the interests of its readers.
La Liga Loca knew its good mood couldn’t last for long.
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About Tim Stannard and Simon Talbot
When he isn't fighting the evil forces of flamenco or attracting libel actions for La Liga Loca,
Tim Stannard is building his media empire in Madrid. As well as contributing to Football365 and doing odd jobs elsewhere, Tim also works in the glamorous world of television as a producer, script writer, news editor, coffee boy and stand-in fluffer.
Simon Talbot? Well, he's a man of mystery.