Champions league : Barcelona-Chelsea

Firstly what a match! And another perfect example of how a few seconds can change a game.And probably history too.

Semi final stage of the tournament and the eqation after the first leg at the Nou Camp was 0-0.The fact that Chelsea did not allow Barcelona to score from the home leg in itself was an achievment.Against a team that plays a brand of football unseen anywhere else in the world.A team which scored 6 goals at the bernabeau against real madrid in the following game.

Come stamford bridge.Essein scores a blinder in the 9th minute.Chelsea 1-0 up.Arguably the best goal of this year's champions league.You would undoubtedly need a piece of brilliance if u would have to beat a team of the calibre of barcelona.Chelsea defended valiantly for the next 90 minutes.Barcelona had the major share of possesion but did not have any clear cut opportunities.On the other hand chelsea had contoversial hand ball and penalty claims given against them.Drogba had 2 clear cut opportunities and despite his tremendous physical strength he will never be a world class striker unless he starts finishing such easy chances.The standard of refreeing was pathetic.Apart from the controversial claims,Eric Abidal did not deserve the red card(though he probably deserved to get it earlier for a tackle on drogba).These are all debatable issues and will remain so for quite a while.

Now we come to the climax.In the 93rd minutes iniesta scores a stunner.The score is 1-1 and barcelona go through to the final on the away goal rule.The bridge is silenced.As they say, anything can happen in football!What i want to discuss over here,though,is something else.

What hurt me the most about the game was that at the end of the game most of the commentators(and the articles i read online) claimed that barcelona deserved to go through.They claimed chelsea didn pass enough. blah blah.But i bet you that ,had that piece of magic not happened, atleast 3 quarters of these people would be hailing the valiant chelsea defence and would have claimed that chelsea deserved to go through.And i say why not.No other team has prevented this barcelona team from getting jus 1 shot at goal the whole match .No other team has kept them shut for 182 minutes throughout the entire season.Well barcelona may play pretty football but does it mean that they deserve to go through? They are going to play beautiful football almost everytime they enter the field.Does that mean that they deserve to win everytime?What's more important..entertaining or winning?..In this case the team that entertained ultimately triumphed but that does not happen everytime.Chelsea may not always have entertained but more often than not results go in their favour.Tonight was an exception.And a team like arsenal who have produced some of the most beautiful football in recent years end up winning almost zilch silverware.So i pose a food for thought question agin..whats more important..winning or entertaining?
Hopefully i'll get some reviews.And comments :)