Barcelona are worthy champions

Prove that you are the masters of the world, Martin Samuel had demanded yesterday in the Daily Mail. "And prove it they did. There is only one club with a rightful claim to be the best in the world right now, just as there is only one player who deserves the mantle World Footballer of the Year. Barcelona and Lionel Messi are at the pinnacle, the peak that brooks no argument."

With their display of supreme "measured" football, they passed Manchester United out of the game and ensured a treble - Champions League, Spanish Cup and La Liga winners - for themselves that puts United similar achievement somewhat in the shade. "‘Barcelona seduces me,’ said Michel Platini, the UEFA president, and last night they seduced everybody. Here was one of the smoothest, most beguiling performances a European final has seen."

And for all their multi-million-pound strikers, Manchester United, "sadly, could not compete. Not because they were fatigued or overstretched by the sheer weight of recent achievement, but because they were passed to death in the manner of the greatest continental teams, the ball flitting around the midfield, the players always finding the space and the angles, until the opposition is rendered dizzy by the sheer speed of movement."

Magnanimous in his praise of Barcelona both before and after the game, Sir Alex Ferguson calls Barca's football "the passing carousel. He says the way Barcelona play in full stride is as if the team has leapt on a merry-go-round, interchanges of play, taking the ball around the pitch, swiftly, often simply, but always with a purpose. It was the way they played against Arsenal in Paris three years ago, except this was a superior performance. United staggered off across the fairground, disconcerted and a little sick."

Galling as it may be to be damned with such back-handed praise, Manchester United can at least satisfy themselves that they were beaten by a truly great team. "This was United’s first defeat in 26 European games and it took a true feat of technical excellence to make them look this ordinary. At the end of the game, the whole United team stood and applauded as Barcelona lifted the trophy, affording them due respect."

Samuel concludes: "It was not just talk after all." ·