It’s incredible enough to have an all-England final. It’s something else for it to be these two teams.
Both semi-finals of the Champions League ended in dramatic fashion, and the outcomes assured an all-England final on June 1. But likely British suspects–Manchester City, Manchester United, and Chelsea, for example–are nowhere to be found. Surprise! Liverpool and Tottenham are the last teams standing.
How those two teams got there is a big story. In the first leg, a young Ajax Amsterdam side walked over Hotspurs by one goal-to-nil at Whitehart Lane Stadium. For its part, Barcelona and Lionel Messi had its way, 3-0, with Liverpool at the Camp Nou Stadium.
An Ajax-Barca final looked certain. It was not to be, though. Both English squads pulled off unimaginable turnarounds in the second leg. Now they’ll face each other in the finals.
And how it happened is one for the memory books. Ajax knocked out former champions, Real Madrid, in the last 16, and then crunched Juventus in the quarterfinals. The Amsterdam side boasted a young squad playing with flair, dynamism, and selfless determination.
Meanwhile, Barcelona scrambled over Lyon and, then, Manchester United in the quarters. Barcelona may have the best player to have ever kicked a ball.
Tottenham’s Pochettino celebrates (photo, Newsofdayonline.com)
It meant that most fans were resigned to an Ajax-Barcelona final–with a bit of spiciness added for good measure. Legendary Johan Cruyff once clad the jerseys of both clubs, both as player and manager. But that didn’t happen.
What emerged instead is a storyline that seems more fictional than fact. As Victor Mather put it, it “harks back to the late ’70s and early ’80s, when English teams won six European Cups in a row…. (But recently) English teams have been known more for losing Champions League finals (six defeats since 2006) than winning them,” he wrote.
And while an English team will wear the crown this year, perhaps the bigger surprise is that one of these two teams will end up on top. Liverpool’s last English title, Mather reminds us, “was in 1990, while Spurs haven’t won the league since 1961.”
Wow!
