MAY 27 — While Chelsea players will wrathfully disagree and the Arsenal team could truly come close, the Champions League final tonight between Barcelona and Manchester United is truly the dream final for most neutrals who love the beautiful game.
If the final is ultimately supposed to be between Europe's best two clubs, not many would argue with this pairing.
They have met before though — twice in the group phase (1994 and 1998), and last year in the semi-final.
If Chelsea-United conjures up penalty shoot-outs, Barcelona-United encounters of the past bring to mind Romario, Stoichkov, Luis Enrique and Rivaldo for Barca; and Hughes (who later joined Barca), Beckham, Yorke and Cole for United; all at their peak.
They collectively featured in four high-scoring games — two 3-3 clashes in 1998, and a 4–0 Barcelona rout plus a 2–2 draw in 1994.
Last year was a letdown with United’s tactical approach stifling Barcelona from making any headway goal-wise, and the Spaniards went a whole 180 minutes without scoring. Not that it mattered to United fans of course because they were happy with the 30-yard strike by Paul Scholes to win the tie on aggregate and qualify for the final.
Barcelona almost suffered the same fate in this year’s semi-finals — a long-range strike from Michael Essien and the Catalans being technically goalless for 180 minutes — but an Iniesta strike in injury time helped them to barely make it through on the away goals rule.
STARS ON PARADE
Both managers, though decades apart in managerial experience, share something in common with respect to their affection for their respective clubs, capabilities and a winning mentality. While Alex Ferguson has seen it all before in his 20-plus years at the club, Pep Guardiola is enjoying a dream first year in charge of the club he graced for 11 years as a player.
As star striker Lionel Messi said of his 38-year-old coach: “Guardiola is a part of our history, so he understood straightaway how to speak to the players on the way to play football at this club.”
Both teams and some pundits have touted this match to be a great spectacle, a match to remember and, dare we hope, a goal-fest, but even United manager Ferguson admits “European finals can disappoint.”
He is right, of course. Just because the final parades football stars like Cristiano Ronaldo, Wayne Rooney, Dimitar Berbatov, Carlos Tevez, Messi, Andres Iniesta, Samuel Eto’o and Thierry Henry, how dare we expect an exciting match.
Well, no amount of Messi magic and Ronaldo stepovers will help make this a memorable final if one side just does not want to come out and play football. In such a case, as has been proven before, Barcelona will not be able to produce the goods.
So, that wily old man could probably be having the same trick up his sleeve for the second year running against the more rampant Barcelona.
I suspect he will have his boys do a Chelsea (who actually were trying to do a United from last season) and keep the match tight. They are then likely to hit Barcelona with a more solid counter-attack, with all their players having a go at Barca on the break, just like how United did against Arsenal to great effect in the second-leg of their Champions League semi-final earlier this month.
Should that happen, then United could be on their way to a first-ever successive Champions League trophy. But surely, that is not what the neutrals anticipate when looking forward to this supposedly dream final.
Incidentally, between Messi and Ronaldo, I’ll be putting my money on Ronaldo to get a goal or two, simply because Messi has not scored in 10 games against English clubs. The Argentinian himself has admitted to finding it tight against English teams.
Ronaldo, however, could have a field day if he is deployed on the flanks, as he is likely to play 35-year-old Silvinho, a former Gunner, who is likely to be deputising for the suspended Eric Abidal.
Speaking of suspensions, I believe that Ferguson will be playing another ageing star, Ryan Giggs, as cover for Darren Fletcher who was given a straight red card in United’s semi-final second leg against Arsenal.
Ultimately, who are the players on the pitch for both teams will matter little, as there are large enough squads of international talent in both camps.
My prediction therefore resides solely on the better manager-cum-tactician on the day. So, it is a hands’ down victory for the Scot who will be happy to collect his third European title and emulate the late great Bob Paisley who did it with Liverpool in 1977, 1978 and 1981.
Comments
Please refrain from nicknames or comments of a racist, sexist, personal, vulgar or derogatory nature, or you may risk being blocked from commenting in our website. We encourage commenters to use their real names as their username. As comments are moderated, they may not appear immediately or even on the same day you posted them. We also reserve the right to delete off-topic comments