Champions League Final - The best of the best

-
I'm just beginning to get excited and nervous about going to the Champions' League Final tomorrow. It will be fantastic and I fully intend to savour every moment. This is a meeting of undoubtedly the two biggest clubs in world football. Here in the UK, we get use to thinking that Barcelona and Man United are just two out of many clubs in the Champions' League, alongside Chelsea, Arsenal, Inter, AC Milan, Real Madrid etc. I don't think so. Go outside these shores and I reckon there is more fascination with these two than any other clubs. Two vignettes to make my point.

I spoke a couple of years ago at the Yoida Full Gospel Church in Seoul, South Korea. There were around 10,000 Koreans there, and as a bit of a warm-up for my talk, I told them I was a theologian, but I also liked football. Sensing a bit of approval, I warmed to my theme, and decided to find out who they supported. I asked how may Chelsea fans there were. About 200 hands went up. I asked for Liverpool fans - about 400. Arsenal? around 300. Finally I asked how many Man United fans were there. Around 9,000 hands instantly went into the air. South Korea? No contest. Park Ji Sung has done his job well.

I was in Prague recently, and spent a day wandering around the streets. There were various shops selling football memorabilia, with a few scarves from Real Madrid, Liverpool and other English clubs. But one stood out: Barcelona. They were way out ahead in badges, hats, shirts, the lot. They even had Barcelona marionettes - puppets of all the Barcelona players, so you could (presumably) re-enact the moves that led to the 5-0 thrashing of Real earlier this season in your living room, with your very own Messi, Alves, Xavi, Iniesta and Puyol dolls.

Tomorrow is the meeting of the two best teams in the world. Club football is now far superior to the international game, and these two have the best support, managers, some of the best players in the world between them, and probably the best team spirit. I went to the final in Rome two years ago and was hugely disappointed United didn't win, but strangely was not distraught, as I had just seen a fantastic team win fair and square without any shadow of doubt that they deserved it. Fair play, and far better than losing to a dodgy refereeing decision, or a bit of bad luck. I'm just hoping tomorrow is a more even game, and this time the reds are ready.

Comments

  1. Faff29 May 2011 at 09:10

    It's enthusiasm like yours that makes me watch an odd game here and there but I've got got to be honest, I don't get it. I hope your team wins.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Faff29 May 2011 at 09:11

    Sorry that should be won, game's over and done now of course.

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

A Wounded Realist - Guest Blog by Denis Adide

-
Image
In recent days we have become aware of the pervasive presence of racism in our own hearts, our church and society. I asked Denis Adide, one of the younger clergy in the Kensington Area to offer a Guest Blog piece reflecting on his experience.  Perhaps it was the collective awareness of our mortality brought about by the global pandemic. The world was made sensitive to the simplicity of life ’ s light and how easy it is to extinguish. The numbers of those lost to Covid-19 being read out in the daily briefings starkly reminding us all of just how vulnerable we each are.  Perhaps, in addition, the stripping away of all the normal distractions gave some of us - for the first time - a long sight of the mirror. We were forced to confront who we were - apart from the normal  ‘ what we do for a living ’  answer.  Perhaps, the recently developed culture/habit of long, YouTube and TikTok spirals with videos linked to videos meant that the sight of something  ‘ viral ’  was inevitable. 
Read more
-
Image
A Sermon in a service of Commemoration for Her Late Majesty Queen Elizabeth II for Richmond Borough Council, at St Mary's Twickenham We gather here today at the end of an extraordinary week. So many words have been said, so many pictures taken, so many comments posted, so many hours spent queuing and waiting for a glimpse of the coffin.  Our reading this evening from the epistle to the Hebrews gives us this advice; “Remember your leaders... Consider the outcome of their way of life and imitate their faith.” I want to take that advice this evening and offer a few brief reflections on the life of Her late Majesty Queen Elizabeth, to discern what we learned from her example as we seek to consider the “outcome of her way of life and imitate her faith.” The first thing we might usefully learn from her is her understanding of leadership as service. She held the highest office in the land and yet she understood that calling not primarily to privilege, to wealth, or power over others, but
Read more

The Stark Choice that COVID sets before us

-
Image
In the old days they would have seen this as a judgment. With a global death toll that has now passed 1 million, this plague would have been interpreted by our forebears as divine punishment or a sign of the end times. Not many people are seeing it that way these days, but maybe our elders had a point. The Greek word for judgment is Krisis – crisis. The great book of judgment in the Bible is called the Apocalypse – the book of Revelation. Judgment was not only seen as punishment, but more as a moment of crisis, a revelation of where we are heading, impressing the stakes of a crucial decision upon us. At the start of lockdown, in towns, villages and cities across the country, people of all faiths and none volunteered time and money, neighbours knocked on the door of elderly people to offer to do their shopping, family members arranged Zoom calls to keep up the spirits of isolated relatives. One of the churches in my patch began to think about how to respond to the needs that were quickl
Read more