Two days to understand if Barcelona's cycle is over and if Real Madrid's can be said to be so. The return semi-finals of the Champions League represent the crossroads of the season for the two Spaniards, who live diametrically opposite moments. While Mourinho's men, although defeated in the first leg against Bayern, last Saturday (for the first time in the league after four years) defeated their bitter rivals in the Clasico by getting their hands on La Liga, for Guardiola instead these are hours of great ferment. Above all, of great psychological work, something in which the "philosopher", as Ibrahimovic ironically called him, has always excelled. Since he was a player and since, as a coach, he has brought home 13 trophies in four seasons, climbing to the top of the world twice.
Guardiola's Barça has won everything, and for this very reason, after the defeats against Chelsea and Real Madrid, a large part of the Spanish press is assuming that the cycle has come to an end. Tonight at the Camp Nou there is the last appeal: la Liga vanishes (the gap from the blancos with 4 days to go is seven points, too many), the first objective of the season remains for the blaugranas, that Champions League already won twice by most of the players in the squad. Which, precisely for this reason, may no longer have the motivations of a few years ago. Or instead, as Piquè says angrily (“People talk too easily, we deserve more respect”), they could bring out all the pride of reigning European and world champions in one evening.
Chelsea, however, will not stand idly by. After a season that started badly and was now compromised on the Premier League front, the boys regenerated by Di Matteo also very much want the final in Monaco: in fact, unlike Barcelona, the Blues have never won the Champions League and for many champions such as Lampard and Drogba this could really be their last chance.
The other finalist will be decided tomorrow: the Germans of Bayern could win the day, winners of the first leg within the friendly walls of the Allianz Arena, where the last act of the competition will also be played. Unique opportunity for Ribéry and teammates to play it at home. But Real believes in it: Mourinho has won too little in Spain so far for his and his fans' tastes. Only one Coppa del Rey last year. And if it is true that La Liga is now in the safe, it would still be too little to define that of the Special One in the Iberian capital as a winning cycle. It won't be a treble, like at Inter, but the first goal was and remains the Champions League. An obsession, perhaps, more than a goal. And while one cycle (maybe) ends, another is still waiting to be opened. Between Tuesday and Wednesday, Chelsea and Bayern permitting, the history of Spanish football is written.
