Champions League Final

My first ever blog post. Hurrah. Down to business(can you really call this business?). With the World Cup set to begin in a matter of mere weeks, football(aka the world game, the beautiful game, soccer) is constantly on my mind. Here in the USA(I love US and A, do you love US and A?) football denotes that smashing sport known to the rest of the world as American Football or gridiron. Love that sport too. In fact, I harbor the belief that I am one of the few people in the world who loves both football and gridiron, as they are in many ways antithetical. The grid stars wear heavy armor, soccer players short shorts. In soccer the clock never stops, in gridiron it rarely stops stopping. Only one player in soccer can use his hands; only one player in gridiron can use his feet. You get the idea, ad nauseum. My first Latin phrase in a blog post. Hurrah!

Anyhow, most casual soccer fans rightly assume that the World Cup is the biggest and best spectacle in the world of that sport. I can't argue with that fact, but for my money the latter stages of the Champions League, Europe's premier club competition, are every bit as riveting, and often more so, than your average world cup match.
In order to better explain what the Champions League is and why I am so high on it, I will have a conversation with myself a la Stephen Colbert or Michael McDonald's Bill O' Reilly impersonation on Mad TV.
Q: What is the Champions League?
Glad you asked, Michael. The Champions League is a tournament to which only the most successful clubs in Europe are invited. In theory, it should only be the respective champion in each domestic league, such as Chelsea in England or Barcelona in Spain.
Q: Why don't they just invite the champions from each league?
Because to do so would make for a small and lopsided tournament. Who wants to see Rosenborg of Norway take on Italy's Juventus? Instead, each league gets a certain amount of tournament spots with the larger and more competitive leagues garnering more of these. For example, the English Premier League is granted four Champions League spots(and that's the last time I capitalize champions league), so that the top four teams at the end of the season qualify for next year's tournament. Next year, that will be Chelsea, Manchester United, Liverpool, and Arsenal(the latter with help from the entire Tottenham team being poisoned at West Ham on the final matchday of the season.
Q: Huh?
Never mind.
Q: Ok, what about the other leagues, like Scotland? How many spots do they get?
It varies. Scotland only gets one place to my knowledge, which is perennially either Celtic or Rangers. Some of the lesser leagues like Ireland's Eircom don't get any spots at all, but the top finishers get a crack at qualification. The same goes for teams that just miss out in the bigger leagues, such as fifth place in England.
Q: Why is champs. league so exciting?
Because some of the bigger club teams are stocked with more talent than almost every national team in the world. Look at Barcelona, Real Madrid, or Manchester United. They are essentially all-star teams comprised of players from all over the world. I should also mention that money, as per usual in sports today, is a big part of the champs. league equation. Teams that qualify and advance to the latter stages reap huge financial benefits. In the cutthroat world of club football, this makes all the difference, hence the huge stakes for these matches.
Q: Who won the Champions League this season?
Thought you'd never ask. Barcelona of Spain won an epic encounter with Arsenal of England. The details of that match were going to be the subject of this post, but I'm getting tired now so they'll have to wait.
Q: Does this mean you won't be answering any more of y(our) own questions.
Precisely.
Q: Good. The format isn't very clever in text format.