Wilt Chamberlain slept with twenty thousand girls and scored one hundred points in a single NBA game. 'Wilt the Stilt' was so dominant that he was booed despite his brilliance - until a young Kareem Abdul-Jabbar rose to challenge him.
Wilt genially summed up his unpopularity for the media - "No one roots for Goliath." I felt the same way watching Manchester United wilt and fall to the irrepressible Barcelona in the Champions League final.
Barcelona's brilliance has transformed football into a game more akin to basketball, water polo or European handball. A team advances with the ball via a passage of intricate but predictable play, and then shoots.
The problem is that Barcelona are so good that the game is all one way. No one can get the ball off them, and no one can hold on to it against them. A match against the Catalans swiftly becomes a succession of one-way blows. Barca's unbridled success is well deserved but the majesty of their glory is fading, mostly thanks to the histrionics of Daniel Alves and Pedro.
It's surely indisputable that Barcelona's tiki-taka has claimed Spain, Europe and the world. The Barcelona way is now the Spanish way - the World Cup was proof of that. Alex Ferguson, perhaps the world's most experienced and financially-backed manager, has attacked them twice and failed miserably. Jose Mourinho assembled the most expensive squad in the history of football and failed to do anything but degenerate the game into more of a boxing match than Holland's attack on Spain in the World Cup Final.
Barca's dominance is best demonstrated by the brilliance of their players. Few could force their way into the Barcelona First XI. One might prefer a marauding Gareth Bale over Eric Abidal, or perhaps the cool Ricardo Carvalho instead of Gerard Pique. But apart from Arjen Robben (and of course, a certain C. Ronaldo) Barcelona can claim to have the best in the world - and their spine is completely home-grown.
I would love to see Barcelona in the flesh. They play a beautiful style of football, they dive less than most and they score wonderful goals.
But the time has come for a challenger to rise against them, for a tactical innovation to re-shape the game, to restore football to a match of 90 minutes and 90 emotions where any team with the requisite mix of valour and skill can score a goal. Football's inherent drama, its fundamental strength, springs from the contest.
The Barcelona carousel is mesmerizing, without a doubt - but nobody likes Goliath. Because Goliath is a bully.
But where can the challenge come from, and would it be worse than the beautiful game it seeks to destroy?
The safest bet is that Mourinho will find a way of stacking his defense. Real Madrid might take an ugly title over another year of humiliation, and perhaps a new "catenacchio" will emerge, a kind of inverse sweeper plugging the space where Messi, Xavi and Iniesta roam. Messi's magic from the false nine position has made the two centrebacks redundant. I'm betting that Mourinho will mould a back three to ward off Pedro and Villa, and send Pepe out to man-mark Messi. The determination to avoid another 5-nil thrashing is already evident in Pepe's transformation from centre back to midfield, and Mourinho's affection for a midfield made by the destroyers Diarra, Alonso and Khedira.
Mourinho beat Barca with Inter Milan by packing the defence and relying on one or two counter-attacks over 180 minutes. How Sir Alex Ferguson re-shapes his (surely final) challenge will be fascinating, while Chelsea and Manchester City are probably the only other clubs in with a fighting chance.
I fear that next season's Champions League will be dominated by clubs playing on the counter. That's why we should all mourn the absence of Tottenham Hotspur - a club long shorn of European glory, but with the verve, ability and ambition to take on any comers. Unfortunately their chance to take a shot at Barcelona was cruelled by Peter Crouch's stupidity.
Tottenham vs Barcelona - that would have been David vs Goliath. And David might have had a chance.
