So what exactly makes you part of Europe's elite then? Is it how good your players are on FM? How nice it looks on paper? How many of your players The Sun/Marca claim Real Madrid want to buy this summer? Or is it, you know, GETTING TO THE LAST FOUR OF EUROPE'S BIGGEST CLUB COMPETITION. Tough call that one, I'll let you figure that out.
Leeds once got to the last four of Europe's elite club competition. Monaco and Porto got to a final. PSV got to a semi in 2005. Leverkusen got to a final in 2002. Would you class these as Europe's 'elite'? No, you wouldn't. Lyon are hardly one of Europe's best teams and claiming otherwise is a bit silly. Yes they beat Madrid, they deserve credit, but other teams have beaten Madrid this season, other lesser teams, should they be classed as Elite European clubs? They faced a poor Bordeux side in the Quarter-Finals also, hardly the most difficult tie in the world.
What actually happened is that two sides in two years (Man Utd don't count, different Barcelona side for the same reason you wouldn't consider Mourinho's Inter and Mancini's Inter together) have pushed Barcelona in Europe. One of those games they won, one they lost. Both were extremely close games. When you consider that most sides who win the trophy scrape by the majority of rounds to win it that's a pretty damn impressive record. Especially when they didn't struggle, at all, against Bayern, Lyon, Man Utd or Arsenal. So to say they struggle against top sides is a complete exagerration, when normally they beat top sides, quite easilly (especially if you include the routine defeats of Real Madrid in La Liga) but yes, they do occassionally not completely dismantle some sides, who deserve accolades as well as Inter and Chelsea are both excellent sides. The Barcelona side on 2008/2009 is clearly one of the best club sides ever assembled, you don't win every trophy you enter at that level without being so.
They were second best in their semi in 2008, second best in their semi in 2009, second best in their semi in 2010. They've come up second best in both legs in those 3 games. That's 6 matches where they have been contained, and where they've struggled to create chances, despite having the lionshare of possession, and where frankly they have looked out of ideas. I'm not trying to diminish their achievements in any way, all I am saying is that they are not as good as people make them out to be, and they are not infallible. And I was just making a point that I think Guardiola may try and change things considering how those 3 semi finals went. He knows he got lucky in 2009. In 2010 they were well and truly beaten. The media after the 4-1 defeat of an injury-ravaged Arsenal side (We beat them 3-1 at the Emirates when they were near full strength, this season and last) was way overboard and rather embarassing. They're a great team this Barcelona side and play some superb football, but they have a long way to go if they're going to go down as 'the best club side ever'.
Next season will be an interesting season, particularly now Mourinho is at Madrid. You'd expect him, with the financial backing he will have, to really push Barca all the way again this year, and it'll be interesting to see how Barcelona fare when they come up against a quality side in the Champions League, no doubt in the latter stages.
Perhaps they can't be put up there with Inter. As Inter beat them quite easilly. I seem to remember they beat us over two legs though and in the first deserved to win by a lot more than a 2-1 scoreline. I don't see Bayern as being a significantly worse side than us by any means.
Despite us being utterly incompetent in that game and doing our best to throw it, their 2 goals came from 2 big errors from two of our more experienced players - that's very rare. And despite all their possession and them being in our final third a lot, they didn't actually create that much. All the better chances fell for us and we looked more dangerous when we managed to get at them.
Bayern have had a good run this year, but they've also had a hell of a lot of luck, and some extremely fortunate refereeing decisions. Fiorentina springs to mind.
What exactly did we win last year to put us up with Inter and Chelsea? We came second in the league and went out prematurely in the UCL. Same record as Real Madrid who you've not mentioned either. Why you haven't mentioned Barcelona who won their league and went futher in the UCL is a mystery to me.
Barcelona are obviously up there. We've won 3 of the last 4 league titles, reached 2 Champions League finals, winning one. We've also retained the Carling Cup, and despite losing 2 of our key players in Ronaldo and Tevez, and replacing them with Valencia and Owen, we finished just 1 point behind Chelsea, this despite them beating us twice. That's a 12 point swing just there. We'll come back and win the league next year.