TV VIEW:BILL O'HERLIHY promised us a night that would "epitomise the beautiful game" and, maintaining the theme, we were then shown a little musical montage of tasty Arsenal and Barcelona clips, accompanied by rousing quotes about beauty from Confucius, Helen Keller and Plato.

Also quoted was Socrates who had to go and put a dampener on the whole lovely affair by suggesting that “beauty is a short-lived tyranny”, as if Lionel, Cesc and Co are just pretty-boy fly-by-nights. Although that, possibly, is not quite what he had in mind when he scribbled the line.

Whoever, incidentally, was given the job in RTÉ of assembling these beauty quotes missed possibly the finest one ever uttered – one that would have been more than a bit appropriate for the night that was in it: “The beauty of Cup football is that Jack always has a chance of beating Goliath.” Terry Butcher, we salute you.

Anyway, Bill was tingling with anticipation, and although John Giles was tingling a bit himself too, he was wary of over-tingling because that’s when you can be badly let down.

Ronnie Whelan and Eamon Dunphy threw caution to the wind, though, and tingled freely, and when Bill suggested that this might be “the best game of all time, possibly” they didn’t tell him to reign in his horses.

Prediction time. Gilesie? “I’d just shade Barcelona, Bill.” Ronnie? “A draw, Bill.” Eamon? “Arsenal, Bill.” Bill’s grin hinted: “Whoo, whoo, for once one of ye’s gonna get it right.”

Match time. Teams out, Barcelona led by Carles Puyol, the man described so splendiferously in an English paper this week as “an unlikely combination of Stuart Pearce’s thighs, Desert Orchid’s heart and Bette Midler’s hair”.

After 10 minutes the referee, if he’d even a smidgeon of compassion, should have stopped the fight, or at least given Arsenal a breather by offering them a standing count.

A bit of the Harlem Globe Trotters about Barcelona. “They’re toying with them, George,” said Ray Houghton, like a cat juggling with a little mouse – although the cat and mouse tend not to go in scoreless at half-time. Mind-boggling.

“I’ve never seen Arsenal so humiliated,” said Bill. “A masterclass from Barcelona,” Gilesie agreed, “apart from their finishing.”

Were, the panel wondered, Arsenal just a bunch of bottlers, so to speak?

Dunphy suspected so, recalling those capitulations against Manchester United and Chelsea. Gilesie wasn’t ready yet to offer a definite diagnosis, but he feared the worst.

“Is it a temporary illness or is it a disease – if it’s a terminal disease Wenger can’t do anything about it,” he said.

Break time. It was, we felt, a bit stony-hearted of RTÉ to show that high energy drink ad, the one where two hale and hearty Wayne Rooneys do magical things with a football. One hale and hearty Wayne Rooney would suffice this weather.

Second half. Unbelievable, Zlatan Ibrahimovic still on the pitch. While you have to have the greatest respect for Pep Guardiola and all he has achieved at Barcelona, that he’d leave that complete and utter waste of . . . oh, wait . . . Ibrahimovic . . . goal. After just the 21 seconds. It wasn’t long after that when the world class striker made it 2-0. Game over? Ah, a little consolation from Theo Walcott, Barcelona doing so much attacking they’d forgotten how to defend. Whoah, what have we got here? A penalty. Puyol off, looking as pleased about it as a man born with Stuart Pearce’s hair and Bette Midler’s thighs.

Game over. 2-2. Gobsmacking. Bill, delicately pointed to the fact that the end result somewhat conflicted with the half-time analysis, hailed the bottlers’ fightback – nigh on causing a riot in the studio.

Gilesie putting it all down to Arsa relaxing when it looked like Barca had it won.

But Bill persisted in saluting the bottlers’ resolve. “It’s a difficult theory to get your head around, Bill, if you don’t want to believe it, but it’s a brave thing for an analyst to say,” said Dunphy of Gilesie’s courage in a world of Jamie Redknapps.

“They got away with murder, Arsenal,” said Ronnie, leaving Bill’s voice a lonely one.

Dunphy started going on about Tiger Woods and Ruby Walsh, as he often does in moments like this, but Bill carried on going in to 50-50 tackles with his panel with no fear for his safety.

“Are you not being terribly unfair on Arsenal,” he asked. “NO,” they said as one.

“The analysis,” explained Dunphy, “should be the same as it is for a West End play, a Broadway show or an Oscar-winning movie – you don’t give people credit for just crawling out of a hole.”

But, after crawling out of a hole, Arsenal are still kicking. Maybe just, but kicking all the same.

The second leg? Even Socrates is tingling.