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The Champions League semi-final between Chelsea and Barcelona was like witnessing a fight between a flamenco dancer and a chav.

For the majority of the match at Stamford Bridge the action could have been played out in a West London wine bar.

You stand there watching as a beautiful, curvaceous senorita whirls before you, beckoning all the while. You feel small leaps of joy inside your chest.

Yet the large, muscley, chavy girl from your hometown you are ashamed to have taken up with is blocking her path.

You suddenly have a thirst which the margarita in your hand could never quench; as time goes on you start to worry that in fact the big-boned Londoner will prevent any contact between you and the chica.

There is a future date on May 27, in Rome, where an English girlfriend of yours will be present; she and the chav met a year ago in Moscow, and while the outcome of their fight was entertaining, it was not a pretty outcome.

You don't want to go through that again.

And - to dispense with this now-tedious analogy - you find yourself grateful to mistress fate when the chav panics, allowing the senorita to finally break through and provide the match with a finish it deserved.

The lack of penetration was not, for the most part, the fault of Barcelona. Chelsea, commendably solid at the Camp Nou, took their refusal to string more than two consecutive passes together to new heights at home.

Perhaps credit is due: they were a kick away from the final, after all, and denied at least one clear penalty after monopolising the goalmouth incident market.

Either way, it highlights Barca's weaknesses ahead of the final against Manchester United: at the root of these is the realisation that the teams who sit so deep in La Liga, whom Barca nearly always break down eventually, are simply not as good at it as the English clubs.

United will not be as solid defensively as Chelsea were on Wednesday night, but they are strong enough while offering a good deal more going forward - and this against a defence which encountered all sorts of problems with simple, direct tactics and the occasional diagonal ball for Florent Malouda.

Club captain Carles Puyol will be back to fill in at centre-half for Yaya Toure, often out of position against Chelsea and greatly missed in midfield, while Sylvinho will replace the sent-off Eric Abidal like-for-like at left-back.

That leaves the right-back spot to be filled, with Seydou Keita the more likely to deputise for Dani Alves, harshly booked for jumping to head the ball - although Xavi or Andres Iniesta, being the most technically gifted, would do the best job, Pep Guardiola will surely not want to leave his midfield-attack bereft of its two most important components.

Chelsea's goal gave the match a fabulous beginning, Michael Essien's left-footed, both-feet-off-the-ground volley the equal of Zinedine Zidane's strike in the 2002 final at Hampden Park.

However if there was any hope of Chelsea stepping out to attack in numbers, even on the counter, it was effectively killed at a stroke.

We should be grateful for the atrocious defensive positional play of Barca - and the endeavour of Didier Drogba, Nicolas Anelka and Malouda - as it gave us an end-to-end encounter where there should have been none.

Whenever Lionel Messi, Iniesta or the disappointing Samuel Eto'o came forward on to the ball, you could count eight men in front of them in two lines five yards apart: the polar opposite of the disjointed away back four.

It was interesting because you couldn't see Chelsea doing that against Man Utd, who also employ two wide attackers and a man down the middle; for Iniesta read Wayne Rooney, for Messi, Ronaldo.

There is great fear of Barca's attacking abilities but United will not sit that deep in a European final; while Chelsea's success from the Jose Mourinho era onwards has been built on percentages.

Alex Ferguson's side pride themselves on their pedigree on the continent and with Ronaldo in the team, they will also look to attack, when it suits.

There will be no Darren Fletcher to deny space in the middle of the park, leaving perhaps Anderson to sit deep alongside Michael Carrick. John O'Shea could do a job, but will Ferguson want to pit him against the Catalan club's midfield?

Chelsea threatened Barca from set-pieces, such as Drogba's narrow-angle free-kick and John Terry's header almost deflected home by Alex, while Frank Lampard caused problems when freed from his defensive shackles and Drogba should have scored in the second half.

That is in stark contrast to Barca - usually so devastating - for whom Xavi disappointed on those rare opportunities to get the ball into the danger area while Alves's final ball was appalling and Iniesta looked for the pass when the goal opened up for a shot.

So back to the senorita: by the time she comes face to face with that attractive, experienced girl from Manchester - herself the vanquisher of a fleet-footed vixen in the semis - it will almost certainly be a case of the queen of one country versus that of another, a battle between the two most respected leagues in the world.

It will be a fitting face-off for the greatest club fixture on the planet, for once a match truly reflecting the Champions League.

Let's hope the match lives up to the billing: for all the tension at the Bridge, the game resembled an attack-versus-defence training session, albeit one with exciting cameos of penalties appealed for and denied.

Jonathan Symcox / Eurosport