Joe Fitzpatrick 
To kick things off I would like to say that yes Barcelona were clearly better than us on the night. In the first half when it was eleven against eleven we were quite frankly, played off the park. We could not get out of our own half and were facing death from a thousand passes. The interplay between Iniesta, Xavi, Pedro and Messi was at times painful and at other times awesome. Their goal was always coming as Arsenal failed to hold the ball in midfield and we should give credit to both Barcelona for a devastating attacking display as well as our defence and two goalkeepers for a fine first 48 minutes.
As we expected the match officials were always going to be influenced by the baying crowd of 95,000 who screamed for every decision to go for their beloved Barca. We all feared that our players might fold in the pressure cooker that is the Nou Camp but even the most cynical among us (me for one!) couldn't have predicted that it would be the referee Mr. Massimo Busacca who would fold like a two-bob note in the face of immense pressure. (I thought the Swiss were supposed to be neutral!)
Mr. Busacca's first mistake was his failure to act on a clear handball from Dani Alves in the second minute. Alves first handles the ball under pressure from Nasri with his arm held overhead then decides to take a dive once there is no longer a threat, the ball was gone. What does the referee do? Barcelona free kick for the slightest of touches from Nasri. His second mistake came in the seventh minute when Alves was extremely late on Cesc Fabregas, no yellow card shown. Then on 12 minutes Cesc was cynically blocked off just inside the Barcelona half, a free kick was given but crucially no card shown. A mere three minutes later Laurent Koscielny was booked for a similar block on Pedro. Where's the consistency, you may very well ask. But wait, it only gets better.
On 25 minutes Alves clearly scissored Samir Nasri from behind on the halfway line but this time not even a free kick even though it is drummed into us in this country that these sort of challenges have no place in the modern game. By my count that's three possible yellow cards for Alves but tellingly by Massimo Busacca's count it's a big fat juicy zero. On 28 minutes Sagna is booked for God knows what when I could only see an infringement from Rosicky in a priceless bit of refereeing. On 44 minutes Iniesta clearly takes Wilshere's legs away from him with a rash challenge (admittedly getting some of the ball too) but genuinely what was to follow left me gobsmacked. Abidal, less than one metre away from the referee decides it's all fine and dandy to grip Van Persie by the throat with his right hand. If that's the other way around our man walks every single day of the week. I was absolutely livid. The sheer audacity to turn around and start booking arsenal players for even thinking of making a challenge set the sombre early tone for the evening.
Mohammed Ali famously said to George Foreman before their 1974 rumble in the jungle "If you even dream of beating me, you better wake up and apologise!" Well my fellow Gooners if our players even dreamed of making a challenge on a Barcelona player or seeing them punished for their infringements, this scumbag of a referee was determined that they had better wake up and apologise!
Robin van Persie said after the game of the referee "he's been bad all evening, he's been a joke all evening, whistling against us. So I don't know why he's here tonight, honestly I think it's a joke." To be honest I couldn't have said it any better myself, it was indeed a joke albeit a very unfunny one.
Their first goal was a gift, quite agonisingly so. Our very own El Capitan on his first of what I’m sad to say will be many outings at the Nou Camp inexplicably tried a back heel under pressure just outside his own penalty area deep into stoppage time in a 48 minutes where we were well and truly under the cosh. Some quick feet from Iniesta and a lovely incisive pass to Messi and it's 1-0 Barcelona and they're firmly in the driving seat. If it was Denilson or Diaby that perpetrated such an act against our beloved Arsenal we would no doubt be ready to crucify them, But it was Cesc so you kind of have to say... "FFS! What on God's green earth are you playing at!?!?!"
It was to be his only really meaningful contribution to a game where for once he was completely and utterly anonymous. Was he emotionally overawed by playing his debut game at the Nou Camp for the away side? Was he not 100% fit? Or is he just not quite as good as Iniesta and Xavi? The answers to these questions are open to debate but the fact remains that for whatever reason El Capitan was never in the game and therefore neither were Arsenal.
Or so we all thought.
It is always darkest before the dawn even when that dawn turns out to be a false one, as we decided to gift Barcelona a goal they decided to return the favour in most spectacular style. As I predicted in my Spartan rallying cry before the game on this very website set pieces would be our best bet for goals and Sergio Busquets would be the weak link at the back. A great delivery directly from a Samir Nasri corner was smashed in on 52 minutes by my best mate for three minutes, Sergio Busquets. Why only three minutes? Well that's because Massimo Busacca decided that at 1-1 Arsenal were too much of a threat and needed pegging back before they built any kind of momentum.
Van Persie managed to get onto the end of a Cesc Fabregas pass and shot wide a single second after the referee blew for offside. Massimo Busacca decided that this warranted a second yellow card for the Dutchman and effectively ended the game as a contest. I can see why Van Persie got the first yellow card for raising his hands to an opponent’s face but that just reminds me of how lucky Abidal and to a lesser extent Alves were to still be on the pitch. How Busacca deemed this minor infringement worthy of a second yellow card I'll never ever know but I know for a fact it ended the game as a contest.
We were struggling to live with barca with all 11 men, but going down to 10 men away from home with a minimum of 35 minutes left to play against the most lauded team in Europe was a like a gunshot to the head. We were finished. I wonder if Robin would have had to fly away so soon if we were still trailing 1-0?
After the game Van persie said on his sending off, "It had a big influence, in my opinion it was a total joke the sending off because how can I hear his whistle with 95,000 people jumping up? How can I hear that for God's sake? Please explain that to me?" I can't say I find that one hard to believe, can you dear reader? I don't want to go into what happened next as for me the game was over when we went down to 10 men.
Graham Souness, a man I previously respected if only for his achievements in football had this to say after the game: "I think Arsenal are clutching at straws" and "I don't think Robin van Persie staying on the pitch would have made any difference to the outcome of this match." What? Really? You said that with a straight face Mr. Souness? I know you did, because I recorded it on my hard drive and watched your stupid face. If anyone thinks that losing Robin van Persie (3 minutes after you were leading the tie against Barcelona in the Nou Camp) is beneficial to Arsenal in any way please do enlighten me as to how.
As Ronald Biggs once said, “There's a difference between criminals and crooks. Crooks steal. Criminals blow some guy's brains out. I'm a crook.” When Bussaca sent off Van Persie he blew our Champions League chances like Kurt Cobain blew his brains...
All over the ceiling.
That is why he is a criminal and not simply a crook.
And furthermore that is why I will always remember March 8th 2011 as the day of the great Spain robbery.
