Nothing quite reminds me as much of my previous posts as other insignificant unknown stuff I've done that nothing reminds me of either... and so on so forth till there's a rift in the wormhole that interpolates a timeline reminding me of last year's ambitious EPL Rapture series (although given it was a 4-part post, it's slightly less ambitious than suffixing "S01E01" on ill fated ventures like "Goal Maal" by Dr.P.Henry fellow writer) after Barca blew EPL kingpins ManU out of the sky. Firstly, let it not be said that I hadn't warned you about important games and post expectation bell curve meaning low probability of any word on the match itself although admittedly I did manage my 2 cents on the relegation battle which featured a lower probability on the curve than a meaningless Chelsea-Bayern final. On that note, you've probably seen the game yadayada I have nothing to add, except that we are all going to die... still want to waste precious moments reading a match review? Why not instead invest in a few moments going through our analysis of why we are all going to die .....knowledge is power, and the last thing you want after ascending the 8 circles of hell is to find the Merovingian between you and the pearly gates sipping wine and saying "and thees is ow you come to me? wisout why... wisout power???" Just to recap, we are all going to die.
To the grudging credit of most Chelsea fans, none of them are shameless enough to claim they won this game fair and square. They ground out an ugly grimy sludge concocted with the oozing bubbling congealed mass of their blood, sweat, phlegm, and opponent voodoo extracted from the lone hair on Robben's head. Not the prettiest sludge you could picture (yes there do exist pretty sludge picturizations, I for one maintain the saliva of Cameron Diaz brewed with the vitreous humor of Charlize Theron to be quite a heady mixture...), and perhaps also a slight exaggeration of real events (Robben has 2-3 hairs at least...) but the point is no one's really debating who played the better football that night, and that's a big step forward at least. Now we can get past arguing about defining "better" football, and smoothly transition to the heart warming conclusion that good football finishes last so to stop wasting time dribbling balls around orange cones and instead start pounding the gym and making appointments with bionic alloy implant surgeons (Chelsea is one step ahead, no more implants in calves, thighs or feet for power muscle performance...that is so 20th century. Instead remove the brain and replace it with a block of alloy that then slowly distributes alloy to all parts of the body, especially to the part that doesn't question why distribution happens from the skull and not the heart....). So while Chelsea fans wont be writing blogs about how they destroyed Bayern and brought about Bundesliga Rapture (coz I'd sue them for plagiarism...), let's not kid ourselves into thinking the Rapture isn't upon us. If Mourinho winning Liga, and Simeone beating Valencia and Bilbao to the Europa were the first few broken seals no one really paid attention to, Chelsea beating Barca and Bayern (although with small picture in mind, I do hate Bayern quite a bit...) to the UCL is the penultimate seal. I'm still waiting for England, France, or Portugal to beat Spain and Italy to the Euro next month - before I formally pronounce apocalypse, give away all my ....some of my... sell at reasonable rates all my stuff and head for the Himalayas.
Unfortunately, from many failed attempts I've come to realize it's hard to convince people the apocalypse is upon them without hard proof (although what more proof I needed last year than the fact that I'd been focused and productive at work for 2 days straight, I'll never know...). It's almost as if people are unwilling to accept that their world is going to end in a fiery ball of flames, geez big deal there's always the option of divorce later y'know.... and swinging... but back to flame balls, I figured just saying "they play ugly non-football" wasn't much better than growing a beard and walking the street with that double sided board saying repent repent end is nigh, although I personally find those street doomsayers quite terrifying and convincing enough make me reevaluate my priorities.... I now brush twice a day, sometimes.. So I pulled the stats on the past 10 years UCL winners, and instead of "ugly non-football" I'm using the convenient proxy of Chelsea not even being very good at the ugly non-footballness betrayed by their 6th place finish in the ugly non-football league (which is understandable given they're up against the champions of ugly non-football like ManU and Arsenal). The UCL winners of the last 4 years had all topped their respective country's leagues. The worrying thing is that the first half of the decade didn't have such an obvious correlation - starting off with Madrid (5th in Liga) beating Valencia to the 2000 title. Compare in this 1st graph, the 4 UCL teams of 2000 with 2008 and tell me which makes more sense...
Obviously some leagues are more competitive, it's purportedly harder to come 3rd in EPL than in Liga (why this is hogwash is for another day) so check the 2nd graph on points, since average points of all leagues (except the eastern european ones of course) are very comparable - meaning competitiveness of a league eventually evens out as we take in lower percentiles of team positions. First half of the decade, UCL winners consistently score less points than the runner up and semi finalists, 2nd half of the decade reverses and the team good enough to win the UCL is obviously good enough to win its league and score more points on average than the other UCL top 4. 2012 reversal might just be the Liverpool 2005 or AC 2007 one shot fluke, but in a radical twist to the entire tale - to be honest I kinda really liked the UCL of the first half of the decade when Attack v/s Defense nemesis contests were always Liga v/s Serie A, like the brilliant Juve 2003 campaign where they beat Barca in the quarters and then Madrid in the semis (before losing out to ugly AC in the finals, also the year where Inter defended like in an LOTR last stand scene and beat a completely marauding and dominant Valencia...probably the last truly world-class Valencia team). But Italian defending was a pleasure to watch, technically sound, positionally impressive, and wonderfully calm on the ball under pressure in dangerous positions.. Now Attack vs Defense is Liga v/s EPL and its a stain on football, and not the nice flavored stain that you want to finger and lick when noone's watching, think more oil spill killing all supply of oxygen and causing asphyxiated death (as in I want to choke myself to death just to stop watching them...). So anyway...that's kinda it... if you were looking for a key takeaway, how about the image of Cameron Diaz saliva and Charlize theron eye-goo....
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