The fallout from the Champions League semifinal between Real Madrid and Barcelona has been worthy of the bombast that preceded it. Jose Mourinho's antagonism finally drew Pep Guardiola into a verbal skirmish before Wednesday's match, as the Barcelona boss dropped a couple of F-bombs at a news conference.
But the prematch hostility turned out to be little more than banter compared to the blitzkrieg that unfolded on the field and the role of victim adopted by Mourinho after the match. The Real coach seems to believe that some sort of Kafkaesque conspiracy is unfolding against him and any team he manages, and he launched an astonishing tirade after the match, calling referee Wolfgang Stark's decision to send off Pepe for a challenge on Dani Alves "a scandal."
"Real Madrid is out of the Champions League final," Mourinho said. "We will go [to Camp Nou] with pride and respect for our world, which is soccer, and which sometimes disgusts me. If I were to tell the referee and UEFA what I think right now, my career would be over. It's clear that against Barcelona you have no chance. I don't know if it's because Barca sponsors UNICEF, or if it's because [Spanish football federation president Angel Maria] Villar has a lot of influence at UEFA, or just because they are very nice. The fact is they have something that is very difficult to get -- power."
The bald fact is that Guardiola had used the power of thought to thwart Mourinho before the red card, ordering David Villa and Pedro to hug the touchlines to give his side width and countering Real's three-man defensive shield with Seydou Keita and Sergio Busquets. The Barca coach also reined in the attacking instincts of Alves and Carles Puyol, who not once bombed up the touchline in their usual swashbuckling manner and patrolled the space that Cristiano Ronaldo and Angel di Maria would have exploited given the opportunity.
The removal of one of Real's midfielders gave Barca the space it craves, and Lionel Messi needs little invitation to run into open field, as he did spectacularly for his second goal. Had Pepe remained on the pitch, Mourinho's boast that Real could have held for 0-0 for three hours was no idle one, but that paucity of the Special One's ambition eventually drove a nail into the coffin of Real's Champions League designs.
However, Mourinho's paranoia is founded to a certain extent: Pepe became the seventh Mourinho player to be sent off against Barcelona, and the fourth Real player to be dismissed against the same opponent this season. Slow-motion replays of the tackle on Alves show that not only did Pepe make contact with the ball, he made none with the Brazilian.
And that is perhaps the broader problem that has been largely overlooked as Mourinho rails against all the malevolent forces of the world: Referees are not infallible, and do not have the benefit of instant replays. They can be duped, bullied and cajoled into decisions, and Barcelona has become one of the finest exponents of this darkest of all arts. Soccer is -- or at least it once was -- a contact sport. That a game being broadcast across the world and viewed by an estimated half-billion people can be turned by a piece of subterfuge is a damning indictment of the state of the sport. Alves' performance Wednesday night was just the latest addition to his particular litany, and he is ably backed by his theater troupe colleagues Busquets, Villa and Pedro, the latter conspiring to hit the floor as though he had been on the wrong end of a charging rhino when in fact he had been brushed by Emmanuel Adebayor.
"I've played against Barcelona three times now," observed the Togo striker after the match. "They throw themselves around and cry like little girls."
But it should be noted that Barcelona, while a practiced and unrepentant offender, is far from the only team to have adopted this lamentable tactic. Di Maria is as artful in falling as he is in dribbling, and Ronaldo, Sergio Ramos and Marcelo stand out among Real's players as being seemingly incapable of standing up.
If a referee is permitted to show a yellow card for minor infractions such as removing a shirt or booting a ball away in frustration, it is curious that it is apparently not in the rulebook to punish deliberate acts of cheating when they occur outside the penalty area. Mourinho may howl at the moon at the injustice of it all, but there is little officials can do in the face of such blatant and repeated playacting. It should be down to the players' sense of pride to act like professional sportsmen, or to their coaches to instill the spirit of fair play.
Until referees are given the all clear to produce a card when a player farcically hits the deck, games that should promote the sport on the biggest stage will continue to be marred by the woeful acting on it.