The internet has made everyone a football expert and complicated a relatively simple game. In the age of 4-4-2, Zonalmarking, Opta stats etc. everyone from the guy who watches the game on his illegal stream in Mongolia to the dude who lives next to Old Trafford thinks he knows more about football than the people in charge. To make it worse came Barcelona, an exceptional bunch of individuals who mastered a system like never before. They blew everyone out of the water and from then on it was the only way to play football.



If you didn't have 95% possession in the game, you were a shit midfield. If you didn't have the patience to pass tediously, you were technically shit. If you didn't buy a Spanish midget, your scouting department needed an overhaul. Every midfielder came with "Can he play in a two man midfield" question mark.



No other fan base was as badly affected by the Barcelona dominance as the United fan base. Two finals losses in the space of three years were a tough pill to swallow and hit us hard. Poor Mike Phelan's preference for shorts was named one of the main culprit for those humiliations among United fan circles. What does this bald headed, shorts wearing dope actually do? We needed Queiroz back - the guy who is a failed manager and is currently managing the mighty Iranians. Even Sir Alex wasn't spared. Apparently the greatest manager of all time is weak tactically. Some even thought he was going senile. To compound matters further we half-arsed two games against a motivated Bilbao side in Europa during our toughest Premier league campaign in years. And all hell broke lose. 1000 word essays became the norm on United fan forums. No post was complete without a customary formation. Because formations on the match-day threads wins football games, Yo! Having 3 bodies in the midfield became more important than playing a familiar system.



Hopefully, the decline of Barcelona will bring back parity in the game and sanity amongst fans in general. We can again go back to appreciating the fine art of fast counter-attacking football. Using the width of the football field will be cool again. It will again highlight that there is is more than one way to win football games.



The final at Wembley defined the cyclical nature of football at its best over the last decade. English domination gave way to Spanish, who gave way to the Germans - everything goes in circles.