Those of you who know me know I'm an Arsenal man through and through. It's not the excruciating nature of the loss that is so disappointing, however. Barcelona is a fantastic team, I’d told my team all year they were the best team in Europe, and had they been playing anyone besides Arsenal I would have been pulling for them. What I find to be so disappointing is that Lehmann was sent off. I say this not because I think that would have made the difference (we'll never know) but because this final had all the potential to be a real barn-burner. We had two, very attacking-minded sides that were really going to go at it, back and forth for 90 minutes. Instead, sending Lehmann off, the first red card ever in a champions league final, effectively killed the game. After that, it was like watching the attack on the Alamo. Seems to me advantage should have been played allowing the Barca goal, and then giving Lehmann a yellow card, would have been the right call. Although I have to admit that as soon as it happened I said Lehmann had to be gone. Even the referee has now admitted he shouldn’t have ejected Lehmann. Oh well. I guess if I were a Tottenham fan I’d suggest the game be played over!
