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47 min: The tireless Muniain has a pop from 20 yards out. Pique heads away. It's a bright start from Athletic here. Problem is they start three goals down. "Pinto's apparent inability to use his feet in a recognisably football way - let alone a Barça way - must cause the entire team conniptions every time he tries to pass along the ground," says Charles Antaki. "Hence the occasional hoofing. But since he almost gifted a goal, hoofing's better, un-Barça or not." He's really not very good.
46 min: Off we go again. Ander Herrera and Inigo Perez are on for Susaeta and De Marcos for Athletic. That may not do it. "What is your reaction to FIFA's plan to drug-test referees to make sure they don't use any performance enhancers?" says Paul Szabo. "Me, I'm still thinking this one through." Drugs are bad, m'kay.
Half time: Barcelona 3-0 Athletic Bilbao. Well that was easy.
44 min: A dreadful clearance from Pinto gifts an opening to Athletic. Muniain streaks past Adriano on the right and then almost catches out Pinto with his low cross-shot to the near post. Pinto's positioning was questionable at best, but he managed to adjust his body and push it behind for a corner.
43 min: Again Sanchez goes down, but this time he's justified in doing so. He'd got the better of Iraola, who panicked and pulled him back. He's booked.
41 min: Alexis Sanchez zig-zags in between Iraola and Ekiza, before he makes the most of the slightest contact – a hand on the shoulder – to go down in the area. You're 3-0 up. A bit of dignity please.
40 min: Athletic, increasingly frustrated, are starting to commit quite a few fouls. The latest, by Susaeta on Mascherano, leads to the first yellow card.
37 min: "Supposedly Pep is moving to New York for a year as opposed to London," says Mario Antoni Benitez. Pep's having a gap yah. When he comes backl he'll only want to talk about all those African children he totes saved they were, like, totes amazeballs yah.
34 min: Messi picks out the run of Adriano down the left. It looks like there's nothing on, but he manages to hoick a cross to the edge of the area, but Xavi's volley is straight at Iraizoz. "Pep Guardiola is a devilishly handsome man who was an insanely good player and an even better coach," says Niall Mullen. "What next for the man who has everything? Coach a good performance out of Stewart Downing and Jordan Henderson?" I'd love to see him false Stewart Downing's nine.
32 min: The Barcelona anthem rings around the stadium. Athletic's fans might as well just enjoy the occasion. "It is Jimmy Tarbuck with Piers, Jacob," says Simon McMahon. "A hard call. But it looks like Barca are determined to give Guardiola the send off he deserves, so on to more pressing matters. Are you doing the Euros, and who do you fancy? For the Euros that is, not in a romantic way." England Germany.
31 min: Athletic aren't pressing Barcelona at all. They can't get near them. Tactically they are a mess. "I just walked from the Atletico de Madrid stadium down to Principe Pio where they have a big screen for the Athletic Bilbao supporters," says Brian MacDonald. "I think half of the Basque country is in Madrid today. What fantastic support! 1000's and 1000's of people, drinking, chanting...in a 3km walk, i didnt see any problems, not even drunkeness. People just have a really good time. Win or lose, Athletic Bilbao have shown their class today."
30 min: "I didn't expect to see an MBM today, thanks for taking the time do it," says Michael Dein. "Agree with you on Pedro, it was a real shame he was left out for important matches this season. I find that rather odd because although Fabregas wasn't exactly setting the world alight, Guardiola continued to play him. Well, he is the teacher's pet, after all. Has someone asked Dave Whelan which club Pep is planning to join next? He seems to know everything about everyone these days." Dave Whelan's just given a press conference to announce what I had for my dinner.
27 min: Barcelona survive an almighty scare as Llorente outmuscles Pique in the area, before being manhandled to the floor after bundling his way past the defender. A clear penalty, but astonishingly the referee says no. I blame Unicef.
26 min: Athletic nearly get one back, but Pinto does well to beat Susaeta's fierce drive from 15 yards out away. Having escaped that scare, Barca storm up the other end, cutting the rabble masquerading as Athletic's defence to ribbons again. Through on goal, Messi doesn't get enough on his delicate lob and Iraizoz saves.
GOAL! Barcelona 3-0 Athletic Bilbao (Pedro, 25 min): Poor Athletic Bilbao. They have no answer when Barcelona in this sort of form. Another clever pass finds Xavi all alone on the edge of the area, the Barcelona midfielder having strolled through completely unnoticed. Why would you mark him anyway? He just flicks it back to Pedro and from 20 yards out, he just passed it into the bottom-left corner. Effortless. He barely looked like he was trying, but you know he was. Breathtaking stuff.
23 min: Athletic are shellshocked.
GOAL! Barcelona 2-0 Athletic Bilbao (Messi, 20 min): Barcelona are giving Pep Guardiola the perfect send-off. This is simply gorgeous. Athletic Bilbao lose the ball in their own half, and it proves to be predictably fatal. Suddenly Iniesta finds himself with space in between the midfield and defence. With options left and right, he slides a precise pass through to Messi on the right side of the area. His first touch takes him slightly wide, but no matter, he just crunches an unstoppable finish high into the near post with his 'wrong' foot from the corner of the six-yard box. That's his 73rd goal of an absurd season. Barcelona might not have won the league or the Champions League, but they remain a stunning side.
19 min: So far, this has been a perfect exhibition of what happens when tiki-taka impersonators meet the real thing.
18 min: Xavi has a dig from 30 yards out, but it's a few yards over the bar. "Well, it IS towel day you know," says Mister Justin, of my email request. "Which team is exhibiting/using/waving the most towels? They're the true winners..." You'll have to speak up, I'm wearing a towel.
17 min: "What does Guardiola's departure mean for Pedro?" says Achuth Vasudevan. "Does he have a future? Never convinced me, the bloke. Would he cut it on a wet, rainy Tuesday night in ..... You know the rest. Or any other club really?" Really? Pedro? He's a wonderfully player and very underrated.
16 min: This is as one-sided a match as you could wish to see. They can't contain Messi at all. Again he cuts in from the right and looks to bend one into the top corner, only for Iraizoz to claw it away for a corner. That was a superlative effort, but an equally superlative save. Barcelona could already be three or four up.
15 min: From the left, Iniesta dinks a delightful pass over the top of the Athletic defence for Alexis Sanchez, who can't quite control it with his chest.
12 min: Messi charges at the Athletic defence again, engaging two defenders in the process. He drops a shoulder and shifts the ball to the left, but Ekiza denies him.
10 min: I know it's a Friday night, but emails please! You can't all be watching Piers Morgan's Life Stories.
8 min: The first real threat from Athletic, and it came from a moment of route one. Who do they think they are, West Ham? Llorente took a long pass down on his chest and turned away from Mascherano expertly. He could have played a simple pass to Muniain on the right, but instead tried a more difficult pass inside Adriano. Muniain hadn't read his intentions and the move came to nothing.
6 min: Athletic faff around with the thing on the edge of their own area. That spells trouble. Immediately three Barcelona players swarm all over Martinez, but when the ball squirts to Pedro he can't get enough purchase on his shot and it rolls harmlessly through to Iraizoz.
5 min: Athletic never turned up in the Europa League final. It would be a terrible shame if they freeze in another final again. They've barely had a sniff of the ball yet and already trail.
4 min: This could be brilliant. Alternatively, if it continues in this manner, Barcelona could absolutely stuff Athletic Bilbao.
GOAL! Barcelona 1-0 Athletic Bilbao (Pedro, 3 min): This has been one-way traffic from the off, and Barcelona have a deserved opener. Bilbao can't live with them at all. They won a corner on the right when Pedro's shot from eight yards out was desperately deflected wide, with Bilbao all over the place again, Adriano romping clear down the left and setting up the chance. Xavi took the corner from the right and more hapless defending saw the ball fall to Pedro's feet 12 yards from goal, and this time he hammered it low past the helpless Iraizoz. Wake up Athletic, there's a final going on around you.
Peep! Still no sign of Pippa, so off we go, Barcelona getting us underway and kicking from left to right. The atmosphere is quite something, but this would have taken the roof off. Messi finds a ludicrous amount of time and space on the right flank, cuts inside and then shapes one towards the bottom-left corner with his left foot from the edge of the area. His trademark shot. Iraizoz is beaten, but the ball drops this far wide. What a start! More please! "Here's hoping tonights match provides us with a fitting ending to Guardiola's reign at Barca," says Simon McMahon. "It's at times like these that I'm reminded of Danny Zuko's words at the end of Grease - "maybe this isn't the end, just the beginning?". A wop bop a lula, a wop bam boo!"
The King of Spain is not here tonight. He's ill. Prince Felipe will have to do. WHERE'S PIPPA?
Here come the teams, led out by the officials. The two sides walk past the trophy; the music they're walking out to makes it sound like they're about to compete in a jousting tournament.
An email! "Have barca given an explanation for Pinto starting ahead of Valdes in the cup final?" asks Vaughan Forsyth. "Seems like a great way to farewell your manager by shipping lots of goals." Pinto always plays in the cup. Nothing untoward here.
Before the match starts, you could do worse than having a read of Sid Lowe's preview.
Rafa Benitez is in the Sky studio. #talktorafa, Scott Minto. Talk. To. Rafa.
Team news. It's tiki v taka.
Barcelona: Pinto; Montoya, Pique, Mascherano, Adriano; Busquets, Xavi, Iniesta; Pedro, Messi, Alexis. Subs: Valdes, Bartra, Thiago, Keita, Afellay, Fabregas, Tello.
Athletic Bilbao: Iraizoz; Iraola, Ekiza, Amorebieta, Aurtenetxe; Martinez, De Marcos; Muniain, Susaeta, Ibai; Llorente. Subs: Raul, Toquero, San Jose, Gabilondo, Inigo Perez, Gurpegi, Ander Herrera.
I'm not saying I'm a shambles, but I just tried to walk down the up escalator. I am a shambles. Rest assured, this MBM will run entirely smoothly however xl;dsfmfrwfm wrefvgrwdelgvrdwxzk:GVRGBVf,sdmbv "RWFMb:"TEFMnbgletv.c x.vefas'"GP:rw4eP{Gl/,rf bv/,.dfm,b;'etfm,pbh\rwf;g,fD>?Vv, >?DFVc, bg;\ref,gb;,, ,!!!!
Evening. Geoff Shreeves might already have been round to let you know, but unfortunately all good things, even this minute-by-minute, must come to and end at some point. Take that life-affirming television series which you've become thrillingly addicted to, thereby allowing you to ignore, y'know, life and people. Ah, what a rush when you hear that thud on the floor that heralds the arrival of the first series of One Tree Hill on DVD. Yet even as you lock yourself away for the final six months of your degree in order to watch The Sopranos in its entirety, there's that nagging feeling. It'll be finished soon. And then what? Then it's back to a life of crippling loneliness, quiet despair and #hashtags. Sure, something else will come along soon enough, and maybe 90210 really is the new Wire. But the moment those credits roll for the last time, there's nothing. Unless you count Two and a Half Men.
So the moral of the story is to make the very most of a good thing while it lasts. Tonight is the last time we will see Pep Guardiola in the Barcelona dug-out before he hands over the torch to Tito Vilanova, assuming he doesn't make a return in the future, and tomorrow is a world I don't want to live in. His departure has been on the cards for a long time, the pressure of managing at the Nou Camp proving so asphyxiating that he felt he could no longer continue in the job. Even so, even though it may be for the best, the reality of it remains inescapably sad. It's the end of an era. The Pep Era. For the last four years, Guardiola's Barcelona have arguably been the greatest side in the history of the sport, a side whose dazzling football lifts the spirits and puts a spring in your step. Now it's over. Too gushing? Too melodramatic? Unashamedly so. It's just that they've been so bloody brilliant. Not that it has to signal the end of this side. Barcelona aren't about to fold as a club just because Guardiola's off, and even Jose Mourinho won't be too smug when he looks through the squad and sees the names of Messi, Xavi, Iniesta and the rest.
For Guardiola, this can be a bittersweet ending, a chance to end his reign in the manner that has defined it: with a trophy. If Barcelona win the Copa del Rey tonight, it won't just mean they have won four trophies out of six this season, it will mean they have won 14 trophies in four years under Guardiola. There's a pleasing symmetry to tonight's final as well, for Athletic Bilbao were the opposition in Guardiola's final in 2009, again in the Copa del Rey. Barcelona fell behind, but eventually came back to win 4-1. This has been far from their finest season and mistakes have been made – the lack of defensive cover, the short squad, the tinkering, the fatal dalliance with 3-4-3 – but four trophies out of six wouldn't be that bad.
To reach that target though, they'll have to be at their best against Marcelo Bielsa's Athletic Bilbao. Guardiola's mentor has created a whirling dervish of a team that has captured Europe's imagination this season, and while they were disappointing in the Europa League final against Atletico Madrid, there's still every chance their crazy season can end on a high. There is so much to admire about this team; take your pick from the classy Javier Martinez, the marauding Andoni Iraola, the waspish Iker Muniain and the deadly Fernando Llorente. Let's hope this is a side that stays together and isn't ripped apart in the summer, because they could yet turn out to be something rather special.
This promises to be a cracker tonight. The 2-2 draw between these two sides in November was one of the games of the season. Classic please!
Kick-off is at: 9pm. Read More
انسخ الكود التالى و ضعه فى موقعك او مدونتك.
