I believe I’m entitled to a lengthy crow this week. Miracles happen. On Tuesday I witnessed one and I confess that I gave vent to a multitude of emotions, expressed on Twitter and Facebook that, were they not in the context of the beautiful game, would probably be cause to have me incarcerated for the use of crass vulgarity, if not worse.

You see, Chelsea are in the final of the Champions’ League.

Did you notice, Man Utd (I can’t use the popular nickname, this being a family newspaper an’all)? Are you watching, Gooners? More to the point, are you praying, Spurs ’cos if we win in Munich, all that trouble to land fourth place will be for nought, if not nowt? And to think we dumped you out of the FA Cup, poor lambs, and, yes, you’re right, it wasn’t a goal.

A multitude of friends, knowing my abiding and deep-seated lack of affection for all things Italian when it comes to football, immediately got onto their high horse and told me that the only reason that we got somewhere was that we have an Italian coach.

Well, the answer to that lies in one word: “Ancellotti.”

And then there’s the other answer, the one that runs, “yes, well, as a footballing superpower, we sometimes take a look at the colonies and take their good stuff, it’s only what we’re used to, after all”.

There were also gripes about how ugly the tactic of driving the team bus in front of the goal was and how the game was not pretty to watch. I beg to differ.

To start with, Chelsea are in the final (Have I mentioned that?) and there’s no amount of whining about catenaccio and negativity that’s going to change that.

And to be going on with, you’d have thought that stars like Messi and Iniesta would find a way through the defence. As it is, all they did was play tap-tap-tap-tap, eschewing all shooting opportunities and trying to walk the ball into the net, which to be fair, they did, twice.

But we did it twice too, using what some smug carpers call “route one football”, as if getting the ball to the other end and having a superstar fight for it is some sort of mortal footballing sin. Yeah, he falls over as if made of tissue paper sometimes but Drogba is effective and makes defenders’ lives as hellish as does Messi, with the difference that the latter gives them a migraine with his twinkly toes and the former gives them a bout of gibbering terror when they see him bearing down on them. And, remember, we did it without that fool Terry. When I saw the incident (it was only shown twice on the feed I was watching), I thought he’d got done for an over-exuberant show of manly affection, if you follow me but, apparently, it was a red card offence, so the silly twerp only has himself to blame for missing the final.

Wasn’t that some superb irony,though, when Torres actually managed to get the ball into the net, with what was some pretty sweet stuff? I have yielded to no one over the last 18 months in my fervour to scream imprecations at him but now I have seen the light: all is forgiven.

I was tempted to use the result as some sort of parabolic (from parable, geddit?) mechanism for a politically metaphoric study. You know what I mean, something of the lines of Star Candidates having feet of clay and the Blues coming in for a win despite everyone having written them off and despite their having utter fools in their ranks who keep shooting the team in the foot but, frankly, it doesn’t really hold up.

That’s because Barca’s stars are real stars while the ones against whom my parable would have operated are so clearly not stars. I watched a few minutes of Inkontri, that programme hosted by the larger Bro Grim(a) during half-time and the fact that these people want to run our country made me more worried than the prospect of Chelsea getting dumped, which was a very real one at half-time.

Just to irritate my critics, which I am sure you will agree makes for really fun reading when it comes to their spluttering comments (you can read them online only), a quick run-through of a couple of decent eateries that have seen my fair visage at their tables is required.

Rubino’s in Valletta I have mentioned on numerous occasions but my meal there recently was, quite simply, one of the best I’ve had there and that’s quite a strong compliment.

Back up North, you will probably have heard, since you’re clearly someone who keeps up on the important things in life (why else would you read this, except to splutter at me?) that Oleander has closed its doors. I bring you tidings of joy, the good stuff from their menu has been teleported to DVenue, on the same side of the square near the church. We had dinner there on Friday and after that heard a rather great set by KOI (not sure if I should capitalise the name, but there you are).

Good ol’rock’n’roll, you gotta love it.

imbocca@gmail.com

www.timesofmalta.com/articles/author/20