In the final entry, we admire the Cruyffist team that won two finals in three years – and may yet win moreBarcelona completed the circle on 28 May 2011. Wembley again, back where it all began. The perfect expression of a team that some c...
In the final entry, we admire the Cruyffist team that won two finals in three years – and may yet win moreBarcelona completed the circle on 28 May 2011. Wembley again, back where it all began. The perfect expression of a team that some considered the finest there has been and at the perfect location too. When Barcelona defeated Manchester United 3-1 in London to win their second European Cup in three years under Pep Guardiola, and their third in six, Sir Alex Ferguson called the Catalans the best team he had ever faced. "No one," he said, "has ever given us a hiding like that." But it was about more than just the performance; it was about the symmetry and symbolism too.At the end of match, Gerard Piqué undertook a now familiar ritual, borrowed from basketball, and took a pair of scissors to the goal, carrying off the net with him. Another souvenir to take back to Spain. When the old Wembley closed down, Barcelona had sent Pablo Ornaque, a football curator, to the auction. He bought items from the old stadium including goalposts, bench, turnstiles and turf, loading them on to a truck and taking them home. Religious relics from a spiritual home.For Barcelona, nowhere has the significance of Wembley. It was there in 1992 they won their first European Cup, when the Dream Team defeated Sampdoria 1-0 thanks to Ronald Koeman's extra-time free-kick. For Barça, "Wembley" always meant 1992, their rebirth. Now, it also means 2011, their zenith. When Barcelona prepared for the 2010 semi-final, fans relished the prospect of winning at Real Madrid's ground but Xavi Hernández was more seduced by the following season's final in London. Aged 12, he had cried because his parents would not let him travel to the 92 final.As Pep Guardiola put it: "It all starts with the Dream Team … we're all trying to emulate them." Johan Cruyff's team were something to aspire to, an idealised image of perfection always just out of reach. Yet this Barcelona surpassed them. They too defeated Real Madrid 5-0, they too set new standards and insisted on the importance of style as well as substance, they too won the European Cup. And not just once, but twice. Or should that read "three times"?Barcelona won the European Cup in 2006 with a project that consciously sought to follow Cruyff, with Frank Rijkaard the coach, and that got off the ground with the arrival of first Ronaldinho and then Samuel Eto'o. That side was the conceptual basis of what came next but there was significant change and the line of continuity is an intermittent one: of the starting XI in 2006, only three began the final in 2009: Carles Puyol, Víctor Valdés and Samuel Eto'o. By 2011, Eto'o had gone. In 2006, Xavi and Andrés Iniesta began on the bench, while Lionel Messi was injured.Rijkaard was followed by Guardiola. As one of Guardiola's closest friends put it, here was a man who had "suckled at the teat of Cruyff". The metronome at the heart of the Dream Team, he had spent the night before the final in 1992 arguing with Andoni Zubizarreta about how many steps up it was to get the trophy, and he was committed to Cruyff's approach. He later summed up that approach as a manager, with simplicity and in English: "I get the ball, I pass the ball, I get the ball, I pass the ball, I get the ball, I pass the ball …"There may never have been a team that got and passed the ball like that Barcelona side. Ferguson had warned before the 2009 final of the risk that "Xavi and Iniesta get you on that carousel". Warning was one thing, stopping them was another. After the 2011 final, he said: "They mesmerise you with their passing." Possession was everything, control an obsession. Few sides have been so clear in their footballing identity, almost cult-like in their commitment to a philosophy. The very fact that they called it a "philosophy" seemed somehow telling, a kind of footballing fundamentalism.And then, of course, there was Messi. Now Barcelona's all-time leading scorer and holder of four consecutive Ballon
