Itchy and Scratchy and Marge...

...and Inter and Barca

In the early 90s, when the Simpsons was funny, there was an episode called Itchy and Scratchy and Marge.

In it, Marge leads a protest against The Itchy and Scratchy Show after baby Maggie whacks Homer on the head with a mallet. However, viewer interest drops when the Itchy and Scratchy cartoons become mind-numbingly boring. Marge then gets branded a hypocrite when her anti-TV violence group wants to go after Michaelangelo's David for depicting male frontal nudity.

Dear Purveyors of Senseless Violence: I know this may sound silly at first, but I believe that the cartoons you show to our children are influencing their behaviour in a negative way. Please try to tone down the psychotic violence in your otherwise fine programming.

Yours truly, Marge Simpson.

~ Marge's letter to Roger Meyers, Jr.

The kids duly reject the cleaned-up show and the below scene follows, in which the children of Springfield go and play outdoors - rubbing their eyes as though they've not seen sunlight in days.

During the the second half of the 2nd leg of the Inter v Barca Champions League semi final on Tuesday evening, I took to Twitter to gauge the mood of the football Twitterati. Oh Lordy - the Tactico’s were gegenpressing everywhere….

But, on closer inspection, an awakening was happening; random people from all over the World were, in my eyes, literally doing the scene from the Simpsons above. Almost as if they’d seen the light and freed from the shackles of boring, robotic football and were running free praising the delights of both teams and managers.

The match was a throwback and it will be chronicled elsewhere by more talented writers than I - that much is certain. But such is the dross that is often thrown up these days, it felt like these were two teams that were levels above anyone in European football right now. High IQ footballers and high IQ managers. We should remember; football was built by mavericks.

We literally had two teams who said “nah, we’re going to win this”.

It was just so refreshing to see both legs not dictated by modern game philosophy. It also shows what can happen when there’s the away goal(s) safety net is removed - teams are forced to actually play. For 180+ minutes across 2 legs - modern football was actually….sensational.

A Story in Two Pictures

Enter the Twitter Tacticos

Towards the final 15 minutes of the match, the amount of people talking about poor defending was off the charts. But this screen shot grabbed me instantly…

So let’s get this straight, two swashbuckling games producing a hatful of goals, crowd going bananas, but the Twitter Tacticos aren't seeing enough movement off the ball? Riiiiiight…..

One of the replies to this guy was:

Go and shag a spreadsheet

I was doubled over laughing. I guess you had to be there but it’s one of the best replies i’ve ever seen. I genuinely came very close to calling this article Go and Shag a Spreadsheet - it’s now part of my vernacular.

Twitter is a lot of things let’s be clear. But there’s an undeniable peculiar poetry to the place. Another reply was

Nobody wants to see Arteta Hitler vs Guardiola Stalin “tactical masterclass” ending 0-0

I mean where does that come from?! Brilliant.

This is how football should be played should it not? A throwback? How it used to be, before the ‘stat-lords’ turned it into a chess match with athletes and every coach trying lemming-like to clone the style.

Yes, data matters, but at a cost.

As I come full circle to Itchy and Scratchy and Marge - maybe Tuesday’s semi final was Michelangelo’s David? Undeniable beauty, full frontal nudity football, all shackles and clothing removed.

Enter Sandman

My football mad son was desperate to watch the match. At nearly 9, he’s always in bed for 8pm and is usually ‘knocking out the zeds’ by 830pm. As I was watching the match I was thinking to myself jeez he’s missing a cracker how the hell do I explain this to him?

As is normal for him, he was up at 630am the next morning and as i’m making some coffee, he immediately runs into the kitchen asking me about the match.

Dad, tell me about the Inter vs Barcelona game - was it any good?