For the good of football, neutrals should be rooting for the artists of Barca to reach final

Published on Tuesday 5 May 2009 23:00

ANY self-respecting football fan, bar those with an allegiance to Chelsea, should be willing Barcelona on to victory tonight.

That is not being anti-Premier League or unpatriotic, and given the range of nationalities in the top sides there is little to be patriotic about anyway, it is merely being greedy. Greedy because we want to feast on the sight of the best footballers playing on the highest stage; we want to feed on the vision of Lionel Messi parading his talent once more.

We want to see Barcelona in the Champions League final in the way that an art lover desires to see a Picasso painting above a Damien Hirst work: to see true genius instead of market-inspired pragmatism.

Chelsea are not the most popular side among neutrals, but then no club with as rich, generous and demanding a sugar daddy as Roman Abramovich would be. But this is not so much about Chelsea, and more about the enduring appeal of Barcelona and the wider implications for European football.

Back in 2004, and what a thrill it was when Arsenal were drawn to play Chelsea in the quarter-finals of the Champions League. Fast-forward five years, and all-English ties in the knock-out stages of the Champions League are becoming tedious.

Liverpool v Chelsea in the Champions League – okay, there was that 4-4 thriller but we had to put up with any number of dreadful meetings before that.

Familiarity not only breeds contempt, it breeds boredom.

The magic of the European Cup/Champions League was that it was different from the Premier League. There was the glamour and excitement of the top Spanish, Italian and German sides presenting a challenge that the English clubs do not face week in and week out.

The prospect of Barcelona playing either Arsenal or Manchester United in Rome is infinitely more enticing than a re-run of last year's final.

Then there is the wider issue of European football. The debate about the Premier League's dominance of football has become rather tiresome, and though there is plenty to admire and congratulate about the success of the English game, there is still space to accept that it need not become all-consuming.

Detractors will argue that the Champions League is in itself uncompetitive because the huge financial rewards create a virtual closed shop for the same clubs qualifying again and again.

That is unarguable, and acknowledged by Uefa who is caught in a Catch-22 situation: if it tries to alter the balance away from the big clubs, it will again risk a breakaway.

All we can do is value diversity for the health of the game. So whether Barcelona were playing any English club for a place in the final against another Premier League opponent, any neutral should back the Catalans.

Chelsea did fantastically well in the Nou Camp last week, when the lion-hearted John Terry led an awesome defensive display, and he will need to equal that at Stamford Bridge tonight for his side to have any hopes of making the final again. Yet it would be a shame of some magnitude for football were Barcelona not to be one of the two teams walking out into Rome's Stadio Olimpico later this month.

The Champions League needs another all-English final about as much as television needs another Simon Cowell-inspired Saturday night entertainment show.

We already know that Britain has talent, but Barcelona has talent too, and in abundance.

Let us just hope that tonight, football is a Messi old business.