On Barcelona’s Fifth Consecutive European Semi-Final
With Barcelona’s dodgy-penalty-stained 3-1 victory over AC Milan yesterday, the Catalan juggernauts qualified for their fifth consecutive Champions League semi-final.
This is a pretty big deal, everyone says so. It’s the first time anyone has qualified for five in a row, they say.
Thing is, that’s a little bit misleading. It’s a lie.
Barcelona are the first team to get to five Champions League semi-finals. And therein lies the problem. Because you see, Europe’s elite international club competition didn’t start in 1992. It started in 1955, before it was colonized by a group of small, greedy men. Until ’92 it was the European Cup.
Now listen, Barca, sorry to shit in your shoes. (I’m not sorry.) But you’re not the first to tread this terrain. You’ve broken no barrier, made no new discovery. A certain other team has already reached five consecutive European Cup semi-finals, their banner’s flown there for over half a century. And unlike the tiki-taka peddlers of our age, this certain other team also won all five of their consecutive semi-finals and reached five consecutive finals. Then they won all five consecutive finals.
Know who I’m talking about?
