"The Cannibal" tames the Matador...

As I predicted on here yesterday, Barelona badly missed Samuel Eto'o last night. Chelsea deserved that 1-0 victory, the blues were better organised and created by far the most clear cut chances. We only saw brief glimpses of Barca's quick first time slide-rule passing. Whenever Barca attacked Chelsea had four or five men behind the ball, this is the organiser in Jose Mourinho, every move is worked out in advance, every player knows where he should be during the game.

Barca on the other hand play a more cavalier type of game, they attack in numbers and at times allow the opposition to counter attack, which is what happened last night. At times Deco and Ronaldinho lost the ball and didn't work back, this left the Barca defence exposed.

Chelsea should have perhaps had more goals, Shevchenko was off key again missing what was for him an easy chance. Once again it was the brilliant Didier Drogba who scored the vital goal - it was a quality strike, but it didn't stop Sky's Andy Gray making a bit of a clown of himself again when he tried yet again to make out that the Ivory Coast star isn't the real deal.

Andy Gray once again making himself look foolish

Barca missed Samuel Eto'o and so they were always going to have to rely more on Ronaldinho but the big Dutch defender Khalid "The Cannibal" Boulahrouz never gave the Brazilian a moments peace and more often than not he hussled him off the ball.

Ronaldinho is currently being depicted as a Matador on Spanish TV adverts, he is seen toying with the snorting bull by manipulating a football using his trickery, last night the roles were reversed as the Matador was dumped on his sorry ass by the bull that is "the Cannibal". There wasn't many "Ole's" from the crowd, but they were enjoyed seeing the world's greatest footballer being brought down to earth.

The feeling is that Barca aren't the same side that they were last year. So I'm going to stick my neck out and say we could well have a new name on the European cup this year and it could be a London club. Barca wont retain the trophy, that is my gut feeling - though I'm not ruling them out. I can see one of five teams lifting it. Lyon are my outside tip, but British interest remains strong, it is going to be very interesting.