The Roar
The Roar

Advertisement

There's a lot we can learn from Europe's Cup finals

Arsenal are on fire. (AP Photo/Kirsty Wigglesworth)
Expert
28th May, 2017
59
1637 Reads

So Tom Rogic becomes a hero, Arsene Wenger wins another trophy and we learned, once again, that the FFA Cup final should be held on a Saturday.

Has Rogic played his last game in a Celtic jersey? Surely there was no better way for the Canberra-born midfielder to end an injury-plagued season than by scoring the winner in the Scottish Cup final.

And what a winner it was, as the Socceroos star skipped past two defenders before squeezing a low drive beyond Aberdeen goalkeeper Joe Lewis in stoppage time to secure a 2-1 win for the Bhoys and wrap up a domestic treble.

Is there anything left for Rogic to accomplish in the green-and-white half of Glasgow? There’s regular UEFA Champions League football, to be sure, but that’s for a side routinely outclassed in Europe.

In fact, with Scottish football now a one-horse race following a season in which Celtic went unbeaten in all three domestic competitions, the time is right for Rogic to test himself down south. A move to the English Premier League surely awaits.

Will Arsene Wenger still be there? He silenced his critics – to an extent – by winning his seventh FA Cup trophy in a 2-1 upset of Chelsea.

What a performance from the Gunners, who battered the newly-crowned Premier League champions and should have won by an even bigger margin.

They got lucky with Alexis Sanchez’s opener – surely Aaron Ramsay was interfering with play? – but they outplayed the second-best Blues thereafter.

Advertisement

And how satisfying was it to see referee Anthony Taylor send off Chelsea’s Victor Moses for a blatant dive in the second half?

Taylor was perfectly positioned to spot Moses’ sorry act of simulation, and the second yellow card meted out helped change the complexion of the game.

It still needed a late winner from the mercurial Ramsay to win it and finish an otherwise miserable Arsenal campaign on a high.

Aaron Ramsay celebrates FA cup final goal

Whether it’s enough to keep Wenger in a job after 20 years at the helm remains to be seen, but there can be little doubt we may never see another manager like him.

When every other club goes the other way and fires managers at the drop of a hat, Arsenal have perhaps erred on the wrong side of caution and kept Wenger in charge for too long.

But there’s no denying the Frenchman helped revolutionise the game in England, so perhaps he deserves the opportunity to go out as he sees fit.

Advertisement

Elsewhere, Barcelona, Paris Saint-Germain and Borussia Dortmund won the Spanish, French and German Cups respectively, on a monumental night of European football.

Of the three, perhaps Dortmund’s was the hardest-fought, with the black-and-yellows putting a run of three consecutive German Cup final defeats behind them to defeat Eintracht Frankfurt 2-1 at a packed Olympiastadion in Berlin.

Defeat was tough on Eintracht – who last won the Cup in 1988 – as one of Germany’s most passionately supported clubs left the capital empty-handed after Ante Rebic scored either side of an Ousmane Dembele and Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang goal – the latter chipping home his 40th of a prolific campaign from the penalty spot.

Barcelona predictably saw off plucky Alaves 3-1 in the Copa del Rey final, with the only question remaining whether Lionel Messi is one of the greatest players in history.

Plenty argue Cristiano Ronaldo is his equal, yet Ronaldo doesn’t possess the skills to influence a game like Messi does – his pass for Paco Alcacer’s third was simply out of this world.

And all across Europe – and our TV screens courtesy of SBS and beIN Sports – fans celebrated the end of their domestic seasons with action-packed Cup finals.

Our domestic calendar means we may not be able to replicate that in Australia, but we could at least get one thing right.

Advertisement

We should play the FFA Cup final on a Saturday, and give fans the chance to experience a massive build-up like they do in Europe.

close