An era ends at Barca?

What an incredible seven days in the world of club football. Manchester United won their 20th league title; Barcelona were knocked off their pedestal in brutal fashion; Lionel Messi had a bad - no, terrible - game after a very long time; Real Madrid's decima dream lies in tatters; Liverpool's Luis Suarez bit an opposition player; and an Indian telecom consultant became a mini-Twitter celebrity!

Where does one begin? Perhaps Lionel Messi and Barcelona, who were made to look like amateurs by a superb Bayern Munich team. Messi, who was only half fit, seemed to have started the game wearing a cloak - not his usual Superman one, but Harry Potter's invisibility cloak. Bayern exposed their over-reliance on Messi and found the perfect balance between patience and aggression to win the Champions League semi-final 4-0, the club's heaviest defeat in the competition in the last 20 years. Ironically, it was 20 years ago when Johan Cruyff's Barcelona, dubbed the "Dream Team", lost to AC Milan 4-0, signalling the end of an era. It will be a knee-jerk reaction to say that this is the end of the era of this Barcelona team - who are, after all, certain to win the La Liga title this season at a canter - but doubts will start to creep in about whether it can lay claim to being the best team in Europe. Bayern are lurking in the shadows; and, in a twist of fate, Pep Guardiola, the man who made Barcelona into this ruthless killing machine, is set to take over at Munich in July 2013.
 

Barcelona's bitter rivals Real Madrid, too, suffered a humiliating defeat at the hands of Borussia Dortmund, a team that has challenged Bayern's supremacy in Germany for the last two years. This was going to be a special year for Madrid - the year of decima. Madrid are so obsessed with winning a record 10th Champions League title that they started calling it decima ("tenth" in Spanish). Unfortunately for Jose Mourinho and his team, a 4-1 defeat to Dortmund in the first leg means they need a miracle to reach the final. It's adios Mourinho, who was hired by the club in 2010 to win the Champions League and put an end to Barcelona's domination in Spain. Mourinho won the league last year, but the meek surrender of their title this year means it is unlikely The Special One will continue at the Santiago Bernabeu for another season.

One man who is no stranger to controversy found himself in the eye of another storm. Luis Suarez lost his head on Sunday and bit Chelsea's right back Branislav Ivanovic. Suarez was banned for racially abusing Manchester United's Patrice Evra in 2011; in 2010 he bit another player, Otman Bakkal, while playing for Ajax; and he has admitted that he sometimes dives and simulates in order to win penalties. More than Suarez, questions should be asked of the English Football Association, which has handled this matter in a comical manner. Suarez was banned for 10 games, but what makes it farcical is that he was banned for eight games for racially abusing Evra. Does the Football Association think racism is a lesser offence than biting an opposition player? Suarez's behaviour didn't surprise many, and frankly nor does the Football Association's. But it's time the English football's governing body, for once, started doling out punishments that fit the crime.

Given the manner in which Manchester United lost the league title to their rivals Manchester City last year, not many gave them a chance this year. But Sir Alex Ferguson's team showed remarkable desire and hunger in winning the title with four games to spare. It's five titles in seven years for United now - one lost on goal difference and one by a solitary point - and it would be fair to say United, at times, don't get enough credit for their accomplishments. This year's title was down to the brilliance of Robin van Persie, the most vital cog in Ferguson's machine.

Speaking of RVP brings me to my favourite football story of the week. Ravi Visvesvaraya Prasad, or @RVP as he calls himself on Twitter, was bombarded with overexcited United fans with congratulatory messages on the social networking site. In a case of mistaken identity, fans took him to be Robin van Persie, and sent messages such as "send me a tshirt" or "you're the greatest". Ravi Visvesvaraya Prasad, a telecom consultant based in Delhi, got over 10,000 mentions and 5,000 messages within a matter of hours, but he took it all sportingly. One of his tweets read: "I wasted half my life studying engineering when I should have been working on my dribbling & shooting & impressing Fergie & Wenger." Piers Morgan, CNN's talk show host and an Arsenal supporter, tweeted: "NOOOOOO!!! We want you at #ARSENAL @RVP. United already have one RVP." It's all about RVP, isn't it?