It was surprising. It was shocking. But most of all, Bayern Munich's unexpected hammering at the hands of Porto was very, very funny.
Bayern Munich fell apart on Wednesday evening. Heavy favorites going into their Champions League quarter-final against FC Porto -- a team that Bayern captain Philipp Lahm made the terrible mistake of describing as "not the most awkward" -- they grasped the opportunity with both hands. For, oooh, about a minute. Then they dropped it on the floor, tripped over it, bashed their heads on the wall and spent the rest of the game reeling and insensible.
First Xabi Alonso slipped and sent Jackson Martinez running free to win a penalty. Then Dante fell asleep and allowed Ricardo Quaresma to gallop through and add the second. And finally, after Thiago Alcantara had managed to nab an away goal and salvage a bit of dignity, Jerome Boateng forgot how to jump and let Martinez through again. Nobody saw that coming. Least of all Boateng.
The fallout has got a little messy. Bayern's medical team have resigned en masse -- apparently after being handed the blame -- and while it's never wise to rule a team as good as this out of anything, a second leg comeback will take some doing. And if last season's exit at the hands of eventual winners Real Madrid was hard to bear, then heaven alone knows what a quarter-final exit at the feet of Porto might do to the massed egos of FC Hollywood.
But ignore all the fallout for a moment, and think about the game itself. What Porto provided us with was a perfect example of one of football's (and, indeed, life's) abiding principles. The joy and amusement derived by a neutral from another's misfortune both increases in proportion with, and serves as evidence for the status of the unfortunate other. Basically, the more important -- the bigger, the better, the stronger -- an entity, the more amusing it is to see them humbled.
(By way of an opening suggestion, we could perhaps name the Law of Bush's Shoe: while it's quite funny when a complete stranger has a shoe thrown at their head, it's exceptionally funny when the President of the United States has a shoe thrown at his head. Any better ideas are welcome.)
So as Bayern have -- by dint of their extreme hard work, dedication and excellence -- become nearly the perfect football team, they have also become nearly the perfect football team to watch lose, in unpredictable, comical and delightful style.
They just have so much to get your teeth into. A club that exudes effortless superiority, whose executives are probably still better footballers than anybody you're paying 50 quid a week to watch. A club that wins, constantly, last year they took the Bundesliga by 19 points, their 24th title. A club that ... oh, look, Porto have got a penalty!
A club that has, in the hottest of hot seats, the hottest of managers: Pep "Stop Calling Him 'Pep', He's Not Your Mate" Guardiola. Football managers want to be him, football clubs want to appoint him. And he just wants to make his sides play attacking football of remarkable skill, flexibility and accomplishment, which they invariably do. A manager that ... oh my, Quaresma's in!
Then there's that squad, filled with homegrown players and supplemented with the very best of the Bundesliga, opposition talent, plucked from rivals at the moment of perfect ripeness. A collection of players that are all irritatingly good, then either irritatingly likeable or just plain irritating. Manuel Neuer, goalkeeping revolutionary. Mario Gotze, with his face. Thomas Muller, so good at doing whatever it is that he does that he has to invent words to describe it. Philipp Lahm, total footballer ... er, they've got a third!
The sheer comical impetus of a result like Wednesday's doesn't often get reflected in the official records -- Henry Winter rarely begins a match report with "I laughed so hard I pissed myself, and then I laughed some more" -- but it's definitely there, and is every bit as important as the shock, outrage, joy, awe, tedium and other things football does to its audience. Laughter, when it's acknowledged, is almost always ascribed to opposing fans, and so is understood to be malicious in character. Even the occasional arrival of the word "farcical" tends to come with overtones of disappointed teacher.
Outside the official record, however, we are free to acknowledge that important things (and nothing is as important as football) can also be funny things, and that Bayern losing 3-1 at Porto isn't just a blow to the Guardiola Project or a favor for the rest of the draw, or evidence that injuries can destroy even the best sides, but also exceptionally amusing. Perhaps deriving amusement from the misfortune of others isn't a particularly healthy attitude to take into the real world, but when it comes to football -- and particularly when it comes to the televisual pantomime that is the Champions League -- then a little delight at the stumbles of the aristocracy can only be healthy.
As for Bayern, well, all of this is, at heart, a compliment. A poor side losing 3-1 away to a talented Porto would be interesting, and possibly even exciting, but it wouldn't be funny. If we're laughing, then it's only because they're so damn terrifying the rest of the time. Ultimately, it's just a shame that the Germans have no word for schadenfreude.
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