They had been quiet. A little too quiet, don’t you think? Self-evidently, it couldn’t last—and it didn’t.
With 68 minutes gone in Saturday’s UEFA Champions League final Lionel Messi started sprinting, engaged a Juventus defender, dispatched him, then screwed the ball towards Gianluigi Buffon’s goal with extreme prejudice. He saved the shot, but what was that rule about Barcelona’s front three again? If it’s not one, it’s the other, and if it’s not the other, it’s the other other. With Buffon frantically unpeeling himself from the floor, Luis Suarez arrived to slam the ball home. By all accounts they got on well.
Really, this was as much as anything an “appropriate” ending to a European club season dominated to such an overwhelming extent by just three players on a single team. To Juventus’s credit, Messi, Suarez and Neymar couldn’t conjure their most world-beating, spectacular form, but they also just wouldn’t be stopped, in this final as in almost any other game. When Neymar smashed in Barcelona’s third goal of the night, confirming the win, the European Cup and the treble, it was the trio’s 122 goal of the season—an absurd number even within the realms of a sport that has increasingly come to terms with the extreme dominance of the few over the many.
Individually, collectively and in direct combination, these three are absurd and in their hands the reasonably grandiose concept of a Barcelona treble has steadily morphed from seemingly improbable to probably inevitable over the last six months. By the time their team arrived in Berlin to face Juventus, it was almost jolting to see the opening goal of the game not involve any of them, Andres Iniesta rolling the ball to Ivan Rakitic after only four minutes with none of the “MSN trio” anywhere near the scene.
Except here’s the thing: even when they’re not there they’re scene stealers. For that goal, Messi played the pass which opened up the Juve defence in the first instance, Neymar played the pass which opened it up for Iniesta in the second instance, and Suarez, as so often, was the decoy man who moved out to open up the space for Rakitic to move in.
The extent of their importance is such that without them, this Barcelona side isn’t really spectacular at all—Xavi, Iniesta, Dani Alves are diminished to various degrees and in midfield Paul Pogba, Arturo Vidal and Claudio Marchisio established that Barca can be vulnerable to a touch of high-level dynamism (quick players, running with the ball). The only issue with this hypothetical “without them” is that Barcelona isn’t competing without them; they’ve each played almost every game since January. They’re not just good, they’re relentlessly good.
If anything, this final was the slight exception to their season in that they weren’t the dominant paradigm for most of it. The game ebbed and flowed on its own terms for a long time and when Alvaro Morata equalised Juventus even, briefly, started to dictate those terms itself. It’s just that when you’re Messi, Neymar and Suarez it seems not to matter whether excellence comes in the form of dominance or moments; the conclusion seems to be the same: they’re the decisive factor. They win. Barcelona wins.
And if they hadn’t won, more than simply being a shock, it would have been a slightly disconcerting ending to this season. Their absolute dominance over almost every single team they’ve come up against this campaign has translated into an absolute ubiquity in footballing conversation right now—if they hadn’t come away from this weekend waving around the Champions League trophy to go with their Copa del Rey and La Liga trinkets I feel like we’d have been left going “What, seriously? They didn’t win it? I don’t really get what you’re saying here.” You know?
Within the context of Messi, Neymar and Suarez existing together in complete harmony on a football pitch, a Juventus win—or a win for or from the work of anyone but those three—would have felt completely incongruous with the rest of what we’ve seen and talked about this season. It would have been like a James Bond film which ends with Jason Bourne turning up to kill the bad guy instead, with no attempt at an explanation. That would be interesting and exciting, I’ll give you, but also hard to come to terms with.
Which is not to say, of course, that Juventus wouldn’t have been a deserving winner. It’s just that in terms of the Champions League final this was someone else’s season, booked out in advance, then claimed at the front desk with only a couple of minor scuffles on the way up there. If this Juve team stays together, for all we know it could be lifting the trophy aloft next year. At the very least it contributed to an excellent final this time around and played really high-class football throughout the whole competition.
For now, though, it’s Barcelona’s turn, via Messi, Neymar and Suarez, and it’s appropriate that they’ve gone and won. And if that sounds mildly underwhelming, then those three Barcelona forwards are the only people to blame—for being so ridiculously, absurdly good that winning a treble has ended up feeling, ridiculously and absurdly, only appropriate.
It’s utterly outrageous. But it’s also unglamorously appropriate.
Ethan Dean-Richards is a London-based writer. Follow him on Twitter