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What other highly
rated clubs in the UEFA Champions league could not do (at least up till
now), the recent Icelandic volcanic ash saga and Jose Mourinho have
managed to attain; and that is to cause, in a very unprecedented and
unpredictable fashion, the loss of Barcelona FC to Inter Milan in the
Champions league.

Barcelona contended
with nature and the natural and lost! As has been rehashed, the
volcanic ash wreaked a lot of havoc globally. From the high and mighty-
prime ministers, presidents, and governors to the lowliest packer of
fruits in Kenya all suffered significant hardship either in lost
revenues (ranging in millions to paltry sums), or inability to attend
to matters of state and the inconvenience of being held stationery in
one place with no option of movement.

The football world
was apparently not left out. Who would ever have thought that a raging
volcano in Iceland would contribute in part to the loss of the former
holders of the UEFA cup and perhaps the greatest team (in terms of
quality and class) to a certainly lesser rated Inter-Milan?

The journey
Barcelona made to keep their first leg semi final appointment last week
at the San Siro was to say the least an arduous one. It was an 1100
kilometre, 2-day coach (a.k.a. Luxury bus) journey across 3 countries,
beginning from Spain and ending in Italy. This must have been worse
than a Lagos to Dakar trip by road! And the roads are even better.

It could not have
been a pleasant trip for a team that was going to defend its title.
True, the coach and even the players themselves tried to downplay the
effect of the trip as being a contributing factor to their loss but
there is no denying the fact that it played some role. After all body
no be wood (the body is not wood).

Perhaps the matches
should have been rescheduled because the circumstance in my opinion
gave something of an unfair advantage to the opposing teams. Other
sporting event like the MotoGP race scheduled to hold in Tokyo was
postponed. After all, Europe as a continent has been known to suffer
from severe weather sometimes including snow storms and matches have
been rescheduled on such occasions so why not now?

Understandably,
there may be time pressures with the World cup coming up and the
domestic leagues rounding up in most of the European countries.

One understands,
that there exists a larger sister (Katla) of the Eyjafjallajokull
volcano that erupted last week which scientist are closely monitoring
and have indicated can also erupt at anytime.

The prayer then, is
this, (at least from the fans of Inter Milan, Bayern Munich, Athletico
Madrid, and Hamburg) that it would will hold its power and not let rip
anytime soon (not before their matches this week) so that they would
not suffer similar fatigue on the return legs of these championships.

But through all the
ash and the smog, credit must however be given to the superior tactical
skills demonstrated by Jose Mourinho and implemented by his team over
the two legs. Pep Guardiola will surely realise now that Barca’s goal
to overturn a two-goal deficit became impossible immediately Inter won
the first leg 3-1.

On Wednesday,
Mourinho set out his team in what Italians will joyously refer to as
Catennacio – superior defending stratagem. Jose Mourinho was formerly a
translator to the late Bobby Robson and later as assistant coach to
Louis Van Gaal with the Catalans.

It reinforces my opinion that the Barcelona defence is its weakest
point; when tested it will fold. I was proved right. Arsenal fans can
now forget about the football lesson Barca taught us a few weeks back
and refer to the lesson Barca itself has now been taught by a superior
power – the volcano and Jose Mourinho – ‘the special one,’ who got a
special result at the Nou Camp on Wednesday.