Barcelona project over, Luis Suarez lucky, Robin van Persie my Footballer of Year - Jeff Powell column
You read it here first, a couple of weeks ago after Lionel and the lads were lucky to scrape past Paris Saint-Germain.
The Barcelona Project is no longer the future of the game.
Tikl-taka possession football can only work if you have a genius goal-scorer to finish it all off. Barca have Messi but unless he is in the rudest of health and fitness – which he was not in Munich – then they are going nowhere. Other than down a congested cul-de-sac.
Barcelona – and Spain in tandem with them – have been a very pleasant intermission in the development of football. But their cutting edge has become dulled while, in devastating contrast, Bayern were a four-goal bayonet charge into their very innards.
Some scoffed at me for suggesting that the path to even greater glory might lie through Munich and the harnessing of all that German technique and efficiency to a more pressing, physical urgency and sharper delivery. Many have come over now.
Changing of the guard: Jupp Heynckes (left) will be replaced as Bayern boss by Pep Guardiola (right)The remaining doubters will surely have chance to see it more closely for themselves in the Champions League Final at Wembley next month.
Football evolves very quickly. Pep Guardiola has been on sabbatical from the game for less than a year but Bayern must be wondering already why they are replacing manager Jupp Heynckes with the man whose Catalan style is already looking out-moded.
Far from appealing against his ten-match ban' Luis Suarez should consider himself lucky. So should Liverpool.
Perhaps the Football Association have left themselves a cushion for a reduction of two or more game on appeal. But if they want to drive home the message that carnivorous behaviour which would give most animals a bad name is beyond the pale on a football pitch, they also have the option to increase the length of the suspension.
Controversial: Luis Suarez bit the arm of Branislav Ivanovic at Anfield last weekendSitting Suarez in the stands only so far as the end of this season, in which Liverpool have little left to play for, would not have been sufficient punishment to fit the crime.
The Kop chorus of protest ignores the fact that their favourite goal-scorer has previous.
Had the FA not imposed something more severe than the seven-game suspension imposed in Holland for biting an opponent when he played for Ajax, they would have been acting against the natural course of justice.
Lucky Luis? He doesn’t see it but the FA could have come up with almost any number in double figures and made it stick.
Back in training: Suarez at Melwood this week - the Liverpool star won't play again until next seasonSince even the Prime Minister has seen fit to remind football that players of this prominence have a profound, role-model influence on youngsters everywhere, the best example that could be set is ensuring that Suarez is still in purdah at the start of next season. At the very least, the FA must hold firm now they have taken a tough stand.
Lucky Liverpool ? They don’t think so and have been digging an ever deeper moral hole for themselves with their response to this outrage.
They seem to forget that there has been much speculation about Suarez moving on to one of the major European clubs – or even Manchester City – this summer.
Now no-one else is likely to risk a fortune on him before he has served his time, next season is under way... and the transfer window has closed.
It is more than a week now since I cast my ballot for the real Footballer of the Year.
The historic award bestowed by the members of the Football Writers’ Association of which Sir Stanley Matthews was the first winner 65 years ago, followed by such legendary giants of the game as Sir Tom Finney, Nat Lofthouse, Billy Wright, Danny Blanchflower, Bobby Moore, Sir Bobby Charlton, George Best, Gordon Banks, Kevin Keegan and Kenny Dalglish.
To name but one phenomenal X1.
Fantastic strike: Robin van Persie scores his wonder goal for Manchester United against Aston Villa on MondaySo - even before that hat-trick including the goal hailed by Sir Alex Ferguson as the greatest of the century regained the Premier League title for Manchester United – I voted for Robin van Persie.
That was also before the Professional Footballers’ Association had to start agonising over how to bite the bullet if Luis Suarez tops their incestuous poll for the relatively new-fangled Player of the Year.
Never mind that Van Persie won it last year. That taboo has already been broken by Thierry Henry and Cristiano Ronaldo. Although he would be the first to be recognised twice in succession with different clubs.
There can be no rational denying that the newest Dutch master is the transfer signing of the season, one in which he has had the most dynamic impact on the English game.
What a season: Van Persie celebrates after scoring the first of his three goals against VillaVan Persie has not only scored goals which require technique and intelligence of the highest order. He has also conducted himself in the sporting and gentlemanly manner set down in 1948 as one of the precepts of the award.
There is something charmingly old-fashioned about this Robin Reliant.
There could be no worthier winner of the most prestigious individual honour to be had from this team game in the country which gave football to the world.
More... After their 'saddest night', does Barcelona's humbling at the hands of Bayern signal the end of their era of dominance? REVEALED: How biting Suarez could be back playing for Liverpool in July... and here's something to chew on - it's all down to fair play! It was goal of the century! Ferguson hails Van Persie's volley as United wrap up 20th league title
