Sweat, blood and tears

1-1, and Manchester United winning after a nail-biting drama which Turgenjev could not have described better.
It was a dramatic final in Moscow between Manchester United and Chelsea. We saw beautiful details, great defending, tactical choices, and each team had one half: Manchester was completely dominating first half while Chelsea was the best in the second.
(and may I add one comment here: was the linesman blind!?)
At the same time, in this epic final, we saw players sweat and fight until cramps started biting their expensive legs; they all wanted to win the trophy!
And as in many dramas, there was blood: Paul Scholes' nose as well as an almost war-like intensity between the players, such as the duel between Vidic and Drogba, in the end leading to the headless send-off of the Ivorian (no doubt he deserved it - he lost his head, and that is it).
And in the end, there were tears as well: John Terry's missed penalty, when all Chelsea fans and players could almost touch the trophy, is sure to be remembered as one of the moments of the final: Mr. Chelsea, a great player, the captain, missing the penalty. At the same time, the best player in the world, Cristiano Ronaldo missed a penalty before that (and he shot pathetically: I am certain every football fan thought "He'll miss", when he stopped shortly before kicking), which led him to cry of relief when Van der Saar made the winning save against Anelka.

Tears of joy and of grief were lost amid the heavy rain in Moscow.
Manchester United deserved to win, but Chelsea didn't deserve to lose.

Champions League final

I watched the semifinals of the UEFA Champions League on a long road-trip of Mozambique: the first leg matches in a boring bar in Nampula and in a kitsch old hotel in Quelimane. On the following day I crossed the mighty Zambezi river, and eventually I arrived in Maputo exactly for the second leg of the semifinals.
I was not expecting Barcelona to go through, even though my support went for them, both personally, but also football-wise, since I believe we would get a much more exciting final with them there, than the two (great) teams we had got. But without scoring at home, it was bound to happen. I am nevertheless surprised that a team with Barcelona's firepower was unable to score in the first match at home, a sure sign of the crisis the Catalonians are clearly going through. Manchester United were surely not the better team in the first match, and did look shaky even at home; but football is about scoring goals, and after Paul Scholes' blast, they are deservedly in the final.
Liverpool and Chelsea gave us some great and intense matches. The first one was a tactical and hard encounter, while the second was intense and very entertaining. While Liverpool played their game, never surrendering, it seemed to me the entire time that Chelsea was the team that wanted to be in the final the most. The players are great, and Chelsea is surely hungry for their first European title.
The final will indeed be hard to predict; I do not expect a very entertaining match. It will probably be very tactical, a bit nervous, and with few (if any) goals.