FC Barcelona (Barça or Blaugrana) | Special Thread

• Sport
• Football
• Sir Alex Ferguson

• Daniel Taylor
• guardian.co.uk, Friday 27 May 2011 21.07 BST <li class="history">Article history Sir Alex Ferguson said Manchester United's preparation for the Champions League final against Barcelona was better this time. Photograph: Jonathan Brady/EPA
  
  Sir Alex Ferguson has spoken of his belief that Manchester United have prepared more adequately to face Barcelona than they did for the 2009 final and will not make the mistakes that led to one of the more galling defeats of their modern era.
  Ferguson, looking ahead to a match he described as potentially the "final of the decade", said he had learned from his own errors from that night in Rome two years ago when Barcelona put on a masterclass of passing to win 2-0.
  Cristiano Ronaldo, who was playing his last game for the club that night, admitted last year that "we got our tactics wrong" but Ferguson, talking at Wembley before his players took part in their final training session, said the rematch will be a much more evenly contested game.
  "We were disappointed we lost that game but it's not a matter of revenge. It's a matter of our players' pride and we are very focused this time. Our preparation has been better for this match. I think we maybe made one or two mistakes last time but we will be all right this time, I'm very sure of that."
  Ferguson has spoken to José Mourinho to extract some advice about United's opponents from the Real Madrid manager and he also believes it will have helped his players to step away from the pressures of the week and be involved in Gary Neville's testimonial on Tuesday. "That game took the focus away from the final and enabled everyone to relax. It can be a long week up to a final."
  Ferguson's belief is that some of his players were not sharp enough in 2009 and that he made the mistake of leaving them for too long without a game in the build-up. On this occasion he believes the planning has been more meticulous. He is also encouraged by having an injury-free squad, although there are indications that Darren Fletcher's lack of sharpness, following his recent virus, may rule him out, just as suspension did in 2009.
  While the other players began a practice match under Ferguson's watch on one half of the Wembley pitch, Fletcher was involved in a separate workout on the other side with four members of the supporting cast, Bébé, Gabriel Obertan, Darron Gibson and Anders Lindegaard. Fletcher did eventually take some part in the game but only the final few minutes.
  Ferguson spoke of his conviction that, even without Ronaldo, this was a more rounded team than in 2009 and that the players "who await that stage are much more mature now".
  He added: "They have to trust themselves and trust each other. They have to do the job right. We've done our preparation well and we are as prepared as we can be. According to the bookmakers we are the underdogs but for these big games I don't think it matters what the bookmakers or the experts say. We go out there with a decent chance and it doesn't matter whether or not we are favourites."
  The oddest moment at Ferguson's press conference came courtesy of a Chinese journalist pointing out that the game kicked off at 2.45am in her country and asking whether it would keep everyone awake.
  "It won't put you to bed, that's for sure," United's manager replied. "You'll need a sleeping tablet if you want that."
  The game, he said, could have "a lot of goals", which lent towards the theory he will place the emphasis on attacking Barcelona this time and start with Javier Hernández as well as Wayne Rooney.
  "The attraction is obvious. Anything could happen. It's an appealing final in terms of what could happen. There could be a lot of excitement and a lot of good football. Based on the enormous success the teams have had over the last 10 years, this could be the best final of the decade."
  
  

• Sport
• Football
• Manchester United

• Daniel Taylor
• guardian.co.uk, Friday 27 May 2011 23.00 BST <li class="history">Article history Javier Hernández kneels in prayer before Manchester United's draw with Blackburn that sealed the title. Photograph: Dean Mouhtaropoulos/Getty Images
  
  It is the look in his father's eye that Javier Hernández remembers most of all. "Something was different," he now recollects of that day early last year when they met outside the gates of the Estadio Jalisco, the home of Chivas de Guadalajara, and he found out life was never going to be quite the same again.
  Talking about it now, Hernández still sounds almost disbelieving. First, his father, Javier Sr, told him he had some important news. Then he pressed a business card into his son's hand, and his words were simple and to the point: "There's someone who wants to speak to you."
  Hernández was suspicious at first. "I had never heard of Jim Lawlor," he explains. "I didn't know who he was." The card told him it was Manchester United's head scout, but there is no trace of ego about the young Mexican, no sense that he always felt destined for a moment like this. "I didn't believe it. In Mexico, the agents put the badges of all the big clubs on their business cards. I was thinking: 'OK, another one of them, hey?' I turned to my father and said: 'Don't joke with me.' But that was when I saw him crying. That was when I knew. That was the moment I realised it was really true, that it really was Manchester United."
  His smile, flashing those perfect rows of teeth, tells you everything you need to know about his feelings at that moment. Later, Hernández tells the story of being so disillusioned with football during one spell out of the team at Chivas he almost gave it up to return to a college education. He was "fed up", he says, and it barely seems credible he is talking about the same man whose eyes were sparkling as he sat inside United's training ground this week and talked of a year that has established him as an authentic superstar in the making.
  What has happened in that time, Hernández admits, has surpassed all his expectations. In fact, they will all say the same at Old Trafford, from Sir Alex Ferguson down. "The idea was he would spend his first year getting to understand United, build up his body strength, get used to England," Ferguson said recently. Hernández agrees: "My first thought was to work very hard to play a little bit, maybe 10 minutes, in every game." Paul Scholes, though, saw something different. After Hernández scored in his first pre-season match, Scholes caught Ferguson's eye and uttered two words: 25 goals. "He's a good judge, Scholesy," Ferguson now says.
  Hernández has 20, but he has managed that in only 26 starts (with a further 18 appearances). He has won a championship medal, with a Champions League version possibly next. He has relegated Dimitar Berbatov, the Premier League's joint top scorer, to the edges and he has done so with a vitality and brilliance that leaves many observers believing it should be mandatory he starts against Barcelona.
  In Mexico, where what was supposed to be a year's supply of "Chicharito" shirts recently sold out in two months, that is certainly the expectation. "They are showing it live on television," Hernández says. "I read the newspapers back home and they are all supporting me and looking forward to the final. They have even changed the time of an international friendly so it doesn't clash." Mexico versus Ecuador was originally due to kick off in Seattle at 9pm British time. It has now been put back two hours &#8211; purely because of the Hernández factor.
  He smiles shyly about that decision and, reflecting on his impact in Manchester, his modesty can be seen again, making certain to reflect the support network at Old Trafford. "When I say I'm at the best club in the world, I mean it. It's unbelievable the support you get here, the care they take to make sure the players are comfortable and happy. It's made me feel like I've been playing here for two or three years."
  Others at the club would say the credit belongs to him. It helps, for starters, that he speaks perfect English and has a personality that has made him a popular member of the dressing room. But the coaches also speak of a man who wants to improve himself, an avid learner, someone who routinely arrives for training before the other players to fit in an extra half an hour in the gym.
  "In the first training session I looked at myself and realised I needed more strength. I am not the tallest or the biggest, so I knew I needed to improve on that. That first training session, it was a bit of a shock, to be honest. Then, my first game, against Chelsea at Wembley [the Community Shield], I noticed the physical side even more."
  Hernández, Ferguson has noted, will often stay back after training to work alone, and it is that kind of enthusiasm and determination that can make it so difficult to imagine how someone so obviously in love with his profession could once have contemplated giving up the game.
  He tells the story with a slight trace of guilt. He was out of favour, he says, with the Chivas manager, Efraín Flores, and had gone two years without scoring a goal. "I wasn't getting the minutes I wanted, the coach wasn't playing me &#8211; I don't know why &#8211; and I was frustrated. My confidence started to drop. It reached the point where I was no longer enjoying football. I went to my family and asked whether I should carry on."
  The message back was firm and to the point. "They told me I had devoted a lot of time to trying to make my dream come true and not to give it up. They said to keep fighting, keep focused and the most important thing was to keep enjoying the game because people all over the world want to be football players."
  Would he have quit otherwise? "Probably, yes." It was this period of his life, he adds, that prompted him to go down on his knees before every match and pray, to "say thank you [to God] for helping me through it".
  United started watching him in October 2009, though it was not until the following April they concluded a £6.5m deal shrouded in an extraordinary level of secrecy. "We knew for two months but my father and I were told we couldn't tell the family, our friends or anyone else," Hernández recalls. "It was hard. We are a big family, we are all very close, and we always want to talk about what is going on with each other. But we kept to their wishes. We told nobody."
  United were desperate to stop news getting out to minimise the risk of being gazumped. In the end, the deal was concluded in Manchester with Hernández's mother, Sopapilla, and his sister, Ana, also let in on the secret &#8211; but no one else. "The rest of us were told they were going to Atlanta," the player's maternal grandfather, Tomás Balcázar, the first of three generations of the family to have played for Mexico in World Cups, recalled recently. In fact, Hernández and his father were watching United take on Bayern Munich from an executive lounge at Old Trafford.
  What has happened since gives Hernández legitimate credentials to be recognised not just as a contender for bargain of the season but also one of the shrewdest pieces of Ferguson's transfer business in almost a quarter of a century at Old Trafford. Hernández sums it up as "hard to believe, especially when I was with my family when I got my medal and the Premier League trophy last Sunday".
  As for whether the season can reach an even more exhilarating high against Barcelona, Hernández nods enthusiastically. "Why not? We know we are playing against 11 men, 11 very good men, but we are also a good team, of course."
  He is waiting to discover whether Ferguson will play him alongside Wayne Rooney, as happened with such devastating effect in the first leg of the semi-final against Schalke. "Whatever happens," Hernández says, "it has still been a year I could never imagine."
  
  

• Comments (80)

• • Kevin McCarra
  • The Guardian, Saturday 28 May 2011 <li class="history">Article history
  Wembley is ready for the eagerly awaited Champions League final between Barcelona and Manchester United. Photograph: Jan Kruger/Getty Images
  
  Morale has to be conserved even it calls for desperate measures. There is an insistence at Manchester United that all had gone splendidly for the opening 10 minutes when they played Barcelona in the 2009 Champions League final. Players and management must be excused if they snatch at whatever low-hanging piece of hope is within reach on the approach to the rematch with Pep Guardiola's side at Wembley. Should United win, it will rank high in the greatest feats of Sir Alex Ferguson.
  Some aspects of the meeting two years ago seem to be slipping from the mind. Barcelona were then at a disadvantage, living in the aftermath of a gruelling semi&#8209;final where they were on the brink of defeat until Andrés Iniesta's drive in stoppage time at Stamford Bridge. The scars from that tie were recorded on the disciplinary sheet. Both full-backs, Daniel Alves and Eric Abidal, were suspended for the encounter with United in Rome and Guardiola also lacked the injured centre-half Rafael Márquez.
  It was Barcelona's triumph that they controlled the meeting with United to such an extent that their defence did not receive a stringent inspection. The inclusion of Sylvinho, a 35-year-old left-back making his last appearance for the club, went almost unnoticed. Regardless of the stars, Barcelona never forget they are an ensemble. When the ball unaccountably goes missing, they become as well integrated in pressing the opposition as they are when menacing them while in possession.
  This year's final need not be a remake. Ferguson's line-up is slightly different now, even if the adjustments are not exactly as he would have wished. With Cristiano Ronaldo gone to Real Madrid, the star quality traditionally associated with the club has been reduced, but there has been an intriguing shift towards well&#8209;integrated team play that continues to be marked despite the large squad at Ferguson's disposal.
  United's run to the final has been all but effortless, even when the side could so easily have got caught up in the sort of convoluted and acrimonious tie that can occur when opponents know each other all too well. The quarter-final was tidy, with Chelsea defeated home and away. If there is more efficiency than glamour, Ferguson's side has still maintained its reputation in the Champions League.
  Perhaps, too, people overlook outstanding individuals simply because destruction is their main purpose. Any team might crave Rio Ferdinand and Nemanja Vidic as a centre-back combination. Were he not a 40-year-old on the brink of retirement, Edwin van der Sar would be coveted just as much. For all that, Ferguson would be relieved if one more conservative character could be fielded without qualms.
  Illness may have brought Darren Fletcher the greatest prominence he has known at United. Suddenly, his presence is craved since no one else in the ranks is so well-adapted to the role of defensive midfielder. If feasible, it would be far better to limit the supply of passes to Messi than hope to stop him once he is on the ball. United face a dilemma familiar to anyone pitted against Barcelona. It seems essential to check them, but teams can become exhausted in the process so that they are incapable of posing a threat.
  There is, at least, a reservoir of knowledge at Old Trafford. Ferguson prizes the restraint and tactical awareness of Park Ji-sung. The South Korean has been selected far more regularly in the Champions League this season than he has in the Premier League. Park could not make the bench for the 2008 final against Chelsea, and while he has been tenacious in demonstrating his worth since then it is also the case that Ferguson now depends on such discipline.
  Odd as it sounds, United, who are now England's record-holders with 19 League titles, are somewhat underrated. By contrast, Barcelona really have more to do before they are classed with, say, the Ajax "Total Football" side of the early 1970s. They could not surmount the cynicism and managerial acumen of José Mourinho last year and fell to Internazionale in the semi-finals. The Portuguese, though, did not get close to repeating the feat with Real Madrid this season, losing at the Bernabéu and held to a draw at Camp Nou.
  Barcelona, with so much practice, may well be more efficient now. United have been highly methodical for years in this tournament, but it may take more than that to topple these opponents.
  
  

• Comments (182)

• • David Pleat
  • guardian.co.uk, Friday 27 May 2011 17.30 BST <li class="history">Article history
  Rio Ferdinand will be hoping to slow down Lionel Messi. Photograph: Anna Gowthorpe/PA Archive/Press Association Images
  
  1. Ferdinand must step out to pick up Messi
  
  Barcelona's principal threat is obvious, the mesmeric Lionel Messi and the combination play he strikes up with Xavi Hernández and Andrés Iniesta in particular, bursting through the centre and bypassing defenders with clever passing exchanges. Manchester United will be aware of that and must seek to close the space between their own back-line and midfield ranks to make sure Messi has less room to work in. Occasionally, Rio Ferdinand will have to be brave and step out to pick up the Argentinean. By doing that, they will clearly risk leaving open space in behind, but Barça aren't a team who seek to play David Villa in with balls over the top. Even so, Edwin van der Sar will have to be alert and sweep up any passes lofted over his defenders. The Premier League side must keep their shape and, when Messi drifts to the flanks, Patrice Evra and Fábio da Silva must be aware. To take a man out and man-mark the brilliant Argentinian would be counter-productive.
  2. Encourage Park to attack marauding Alves
  
  United must be proactive in terms of their selection and approach. In Rome back in 2009, Wayne Rooney was asked to play wide left with little effect. This time around, Park Ji-sung's energy must be employed in that position with the South Korean charged with attacking Dani Alves, a player happiest when marauding down the flank as a supplementary attacker, and try to make the full-back concentrate on defending. He is uncomfortable when pushed back into his shell. United must seek to pin back the Brazilian and, when the free-flowing full-back does break free to join his midfielders in their forward forays, the Premier League team must seek to exploit the space he has left behind on the counterattack once possession is prised from the Catalans.
  3. Rooney must hassle Busquets in possession
  
  Rooney, in a central role, will carry an attacking threat for United but he has defensive duties to play as well. The England forward must sit on Sergio Busquets, Barcelona's deepest-lying midfielder, when the Catalans start passing the ball out from the back. Busquets is their go-through man, a distributor with a fine passing range but the man who presents the play to the creative talents ahead. Yet, as Real Madrid showed in the semi-finals, the Spain international can become irritated if he is afforded close attention. Rooney must cramp his style, hassle and buzz around him, making sure Busquets is continually harassed when in possession. He can help cut off Barça at their source.
  4. Close down Valdés and make him kick long
  
  Víctor Valdés likes to start attacks, distributing to Busquets or his centre-halves when he collects the ball in open play, and, if only intermittently, United must close down the goalkeeper and those around him to force him to kick long. They have to snap on to the goalkeeper and push in on his centre-backs, who tend to split, and the deep-lying midfielder. They have to cut out the angle for Valdés and leave him no options. That will play into United's hands &#8211; their strength will be in the aerial ability of Nemanja Vidic and Ferdinand, who are so happy dealing with that kind of delivery. It will not be something they can do every time Valdés collects, because it will expend energy, but now and again they must push on tight and force him out of his comfort zone.
  5. Stay disciplined and keep 11 men on the pitch
  
  United, above all, must remain disciplined. Barcelona's tie with Real Madrid in the semis was always likely to be fractious given the antagonism between the two bitter rivals, but what those games proved is that, when the Catalans are not smooth and comfortable in their possession, they can quickly become irritated and lose their focus. In contrast, it is vital that United stay cool and do not risk a sending off, which would make their task even more daunting. Barça cherish the ball and love being in possession; United have to retain a full complement to confront them effectively.
  
  

• Comments (80)

• • Kevin McCarra
  • The Guardian, Saturday 28 May 2011 <li class="history">Article history
  Wembley is ready for the eagerly awaited Champions League final between Barcelona and Manchester United. Photograph: Jan Kruger/Getty Images
  
  Morale has to be conserved even it calls for desperate measures. There is an insistence at Manchester United that all had gone splendidly for the opening 10 minutes when they played Barcelona in the 2009 Champions League final. Players and management must be excused if they snatch at whatever low-hanging piece of hope is within reach on the approach to the rematch with Pep Guardiola's side at Wembley. Should United win, it will rank high in the greatest feats of Sir Alex Ferguson.
  Some aspects of the meeting two years ago seem to be slipping from the mind. Barcelona were then at a disadvantage, living in the aftermath of a gruelling semi&#8209;final where they were on the brink of defeat until Andrés Iniesta's drive in stoppage time at Stamford Bridge. The scars from that tie were recorded on the disciplinary sheet. Both full-backs, Daniel Alves and Eric Abidal, were suspended for the encounter with United in Rome and Guardiola also lacked the injured centre-half Rafael Márquez.
  It was Barcelona's triumph that they controlled the meeting with United to such an extent that their defence did not receive a stringent inspection. The inclusion of Sylvinho, a 35-year-old left-back making his last appearance for the club, went almost unnoticed. Regardless of the stars, Barcelona never forget they are an ensemble. When the ball unaccountably goes missing, they become as well integrated in pressing the opposition as they are when menacing them while in possession.
  This year's final need not be a remake. Ferguson's line-up is slightly different now, even if the adjustments are not exactly as he would have wished. With Cristiano Ronaldo gone to Real Madrid, the star quality traditionally associated with the club has been reduced, but there has been an intriguing shift towards well&#8209;integrated team play that continues to be marked despite the large squad at Ferguson's disposal.
  United's run to the final has been all but effortless, even when the side could so easily have got caught up in the sort of convoluted and acrimonious tie that can occur when opponents know each other all too well. The quarter-final was tidy, with Chelsea defeated home and away. If there is more efficiency than glamour, Ferguson's side has still maintained its reputation in the Champions League.
  Perhaps, too, people overlook outstanding individuals simply because destruction is their main purpose. Any team might crave Rio Ferdinand and Nemanja Vidic as a centre-back combination. Were he not a 40-year-old on the brink of retirement, Edwin van der Sar would be coveted just as much. For all that, Ferguson would be relieved if one more conservative character could be fielded without qualms.
  Illness may have brought Darren Fletcher the greatest prominence he has known at United. Suddenly, his presence is craved since no one else in the ranks is so well-adapted to the role of defensive midfielder. If feasible, it would be far better to limit the supply of passes to Messi than hope to stop him once he is on the ball. United face a dilemma familiar to anyone pitted against Barcelona. It seems essential to check them, but teams can become exhausted in the process so that they are incapable of posing a threat.
  There is, at least, a reservoir of knowledge at Old Trafford. Ferguson prizes the restraint and tactical awareness of Park Ji-sung. The South Korean has been selected far more regularly in the Champions League this season than he has in the Premier League. Park could not make the bench for the 2008 final against Chelsea, and while he has been tenacious in demonstrating his worth since then it is also the case that Ferguson now depends on such discipline.
  Odd as it sounds, United, who are now England's record-holders with 19 League titles, are somewhat underrated. By contrast, Barcelona really have more to do before they are classed with, say, the Ajax "Total Football" side of the early 1970s. They could not surmount the cynicism and managerial acumen of José Mourinho last year and fell to Internazionale in the semi-finals. The Portuguese, though, did not get close to repeating the feat with Real Madrid this season, losing at the Bernabéu and held to a draw at Camp Nou.
  Barcelona, with so much practice, may well be more efficient now. United have been highly methodical for years in this tournament, but it may take more than that to topple these opponents.
  
  

Eqlypz said:

Mpaka sasa Man Utd na Barca wameshakutana mara kumi draw 4 wameshinda mara tatu pande zote. Naombea tuendelee na haka kaform ketu kakutokuconcede away kwenye Champions League na gundu la Barcelona kutokushinda ndani ya Uingereza.

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• Comments (60)

• • Richard Williams
  • The Guardian, Saturday 28 May 2011 <li class="history">Article history
  Manchester United's Sir Alex Ferguson will be seeking revenge over Barcelona in the European Cup final at Wembley. Photograph: Shaun Botterill/Getty Images
  
  Even a man as addicted to conflict as Sir Alex Ferguson knows there is no point in picking a pre-match quarrel with as civilised and courteous an opponent as Pep Guardiola ahead of Saturday's European Cup final. It is possible to get under Guardiola's skin, as we saw in his exasperated response to José Mourinho's taunts before the first leg of Barcelona's semi-final with Real Madrid last month, but the exchange had only one winner, and it was not the Portuguese provocateur.
  Perhaps that explains Ferguson's sotto voce threat to ban the journalist who dared to mention Ryan Giggs at the first of this week's press conferences. Sotto voce, or stage whisper? Was he consciously inserting a bit of grit into the contest, to dispel the possibility of blandness in the run-up to the biggest night of the year? This is, after all, a man who has worked so hard to create a siege mentality that whereas the whole of England &#8211; even the whole of the British Isles, given the nationalities of George Best, Denis Law, Pat Crerand, Tony Dunne and Shay Brennan &#8211; stood behind United when they faced Benfica in the 1968 European Cup final, four decades later a large part of the country will be cheering for Barcelona, and not just because the Catalan club is held to represent the forces of footballing enlightenment.
  History is in the bones of this meeting at Wembley. Two of the three biggest and richest football clubs in the world will be fighting over the most coveted trophy available to them, on the pitch where each of them experienced the euphoric release of winning it for the first time. This, too, is an occasion relished more than any other by the game's connoisseurs.
  Only the naive switch on a World Cup final anticipating a feast of football, as last July's disfigured contest in Soccer City confirmed. But when the players of Barcelona and Manchester United walk out to compete for the European Cup, they will be expected to provide football of the highest quality.
  That special optimism dates back to Real Madrid's domination over the early years of the tournament, when Alfredo Di Stéfano and his colleagues opened the eyes of a generation to the beauty that footballers could create. Half a century later, the trophy glitters with a lustre imparted by the individual contributions of Eusébio, Johan Cruyff, Gerd Müller, Michel Platini and Marco van Basten.
  Human nature and football being what they are, the expectation of quality is not always met. Red Star Belgrade's victory over Olympique Marseille after a penalty shootout in Bari is remembered 20 years later with a shudder, and few outside Italy and England can have enjoyed Milan's win over Juventus at Old Trafford in 2003 or Manchester United's joyless tussle with Chelsea in Moscow in 2008, two sterile games ultimately settled by the same agonising method. Ferguson, who was among the 135,000 at Hampden Park in May 1960 when Real Madrid scored seven goals to Eintracht Frankfurt's three, has a keener understanding than most of the moral requirements that also form an integral part of Guardiola's Barcelona heritage.
  Both clubs are acutely aware that the winners will move up a rung in the tournament's all-time table, joining Ajax Amsterdam and Bayern Munich on a total of four wins, below Real Madrid (nine), Milan (seven) and Liverpool (five). At their level, these things matter a great deal. But so do the countless subplots, chief among which must be Ferguson's desire, midway through his 70th year, to take his revenge on the man on the adjacent bench. When Barcelona comfortably defeated United in Rome two years ago, Guardiola had been in the job not quite 12 months. Ferguson will not want another lesson in tactical composure from a man 30 years his junior, however respectful he may be.
  United began that last final with an exhilarating charge that produced five shots and a series of nervous errors from Barcelona's defenders in the first nine minutes. Then Samuel Eto'o broke away to prod the ball past Edwin van der Sar and the match was as good as settled a full hour before Lionel Messi looped his cunning header over United's horrified goalkeeper to complete the scoreline in a match that ended with a flurry of yellow cards for the frustrated losers.
  Barcelona, it is said, are even better now: more compact, more controlled and controlling, and routinely able to command more than 70% of possession, allowing their skilful players to rest on the ball while their opponents are driven to distraction and exhaustion. A personal belief, close to heresy in the current climate, is that while all this is demonstrably true, the present side lack the extra dimension provided in the last season or two of Frank Rijkaard's time at the Camp Nou by the presence alongside Messi of Eto'o, Ronaldinho and Thierry Henry, whose unpredictability and breakaway pace constituted a pretty useful Plan B.
  David Villa and Pedro Rodríguez, Messi's accomplices in Guardiola's current team, are accomplished finishers, their skills finely integrated into the attacking labyrinth created by Xavi Hernández, Andrés Iniesta and Sergio Busquets. But on the rare occasions when the current Barcelona find themselves in a tactical stalemate, they have problems conjuring an alternative approach.
  Before Ferguson's players can hope to profit from such a situation, they must first create the stalemate. Lying awake in recent weeks, the manager's principal concern must have been the centre of his midfield. Should he play two men there, with two others wide and two up front, or try a straight match-up with Barcelona's trio? The key figures will be Giggs, a far more effective player now than the one who endured a rotten night in Rome, Michael Carrick, who seems to have recovered some of the qualities that persuaded United to invest £18m five years ago, and Darren Fletcher, a Ferguson favourite for big matches.
  Fletcher, whose absence from the 2009 final through suspension was a key factor in United's failure to compete with Barcelona, missed most of March and all of April with a "mystery virus". The 27-year-old Scot returned to play the last 20 minutes of the second leg of the Champions League semi-final against Schalke on 4 May, and was given the whole 90 minutes against Blackpool last Sunday. He seems to have lost weight from his already lean frame, but if he is anywhere near full fitness Ferguson will rely on his driving energy and anticipation of danger to disrupt Barcelona's web-spinning before it gets going. A combination of Carrick, two months away from his 30th birthday, and the 37-year-old Giggs would not appear to present as formidable a barrier to the Catalans. It was good enough to see off Chelsea in both legs of the quarter-final and in the crucial Premier League meeting at Old Trafford a month ago, but Chelsea are not Barcelona.
  While Ferguson prefers to add a little spice to his preparations and makes a science of rotating his squad, Guardiola operates in the most serene and stable of environments. Whereas several options of formation and selection are still open to Ferguson, only last-minute injuries would disrupt Barcelona's plans. A lack of self-confidence will not be their problem; an excess of it could be. Even the humblest player might be affected by a couple of years of being told, by the credulous and the sycophantic, that he is a part of the best football team ever put on earth.
  If anything threatens the spectacle, it is the habit, common to both teams, of putting the referee under pressure. Viktor Kassai, the 35-year-old Hungarian official, may need to call on almost a decade of international experience as he is surrounded by players &#8211; one or two of them older than him &#8211; demanding favourable decisions and waving imaginary cards.
  This is Wembley's sixth European Cup final, to follow those of 1963 (won by Milan), 1968 (Busby's United), 1971 (Ajax), 1978 (Liverpool) and 1992 (Barcelona). But it is the first at the new stadium, the most expensive ever built to house football, its giant illuminated arch replacing the old twin towers as the venue's signature. With a minimum ticket price of £80, and hospitality suites going for £45,000, the match cannot help but symbolise football's new realities. It is the players who have the chance to uphold older values.
  
  

• Comments (60)

• • Richard Williams
  • The Guardian, Saturday 28 May 2011 <li class="history">Article history
  Manchester United's Sir Alex Ferguson will be seeking revenge over Barcelona in the European Cup final at Wembley. Photograph: Shaun Botterill/Getty Images
  
  Even a man as addicted to conflict as Sir Alex Ferguson knows there is no point in picking a pre-match quarrel with as civilised and courteous an opponent as Pep Guardiola ahead of Saturday's European Cup final. It is possible to get under Guardiola's skin, as we saw in his exasperated response to José Mourinho's taunts before the first leg of Barcelona's semi-final with Real Madrid last month, but the exchange had only one winner, and it was not the Portuguese provocateur.
  Perhaps that explains Ferguson's sotto voce threat to ban the journalist who dared to mention Ryan Giggs at the first of this week's press conferences. Sotto voce, or stage whisper? Was he consciously inserting a bit of grit into the contest, to dispel the possibility of blandness in the run-up to the biggest night of the year? This is, after all, a man who has worked so hard to create a siege mentality that whereas the whole of England – even the whole of the British Isles, given the nationalities of George Best, Denis Law, Pat Crerand, Tony Dunne and Shay Brennan – stood behind United when they faced Benfica in the 1968 European Cup final, four decades later a large part of the country will be cheering for Barcelona, and not just because the Catalan club is held to represent the forces of footballing enlightenment.
  History is in the bones of this meeting at Wembley. Two of the three biggest and richest football clubs in the world will be fighting over the most coveted trophy available to them, on the pitch where each of them experienced the euphoric release of winning it for the first time. This, too, is an occasion relished more than any other by the game's connoisseurs.
  Only the naive switch on a World Cup final anticipating a feast of football, as last July's disfigured contest in Soccer City confirmed. But when the players of Barcelona and Manchester United walk out to compete for the European Cup, they will be expected to provide football of the highest quality.
  That special optimism dates back to Real Madrid's domination over the early years of the tournament, when Alfredo Di Stéfano and his colleagues opened the eyes of a generation to the beauty that footballers could create. Half a century later, the trophy glitters with a lustre imparted by the individual contributions of Eusébio, Johan Cruyff, Gerd Müller, Michel Platini and Marco van Basten.
  Human nature and football being what they are, the expectation of quality is not always met. Red Star Belgrade's victory over Olympique Marseille after a penalty shootout in Bari is remembered 20 years later with a shudder, and few outside Italy and England can have enjoyed Milan's win over Juventus at Old Trafford in 2003 or Manchester United's joyless tussle with Chelsea in Moscow in 2008, two sterile games ultimately settled by the same agonising method. Ferguson, who was among the 135,000 at Hampden Park in May 1960 when Real Madrid scored seven goals to Eintracht Frankfurt's three, has a keener understanding than most of the moral requirements that also form an integral part of Guardiola's Barcelona heritage.
  Both clubs are acutely aware that the winners will move up a rung in the tournament's all-time table, joining Ajax Amsterdam and Bayern Munich on a total of four wins, below Real Madrid (nine), Milan (seven) and Liverpool (five). At their level, these things matter a great deal. But so do the countless subplots, chief among which must be Ferguson's desire, midway through his 70th year, to take his revenge on the man on the adjacent bench. When Barcelona comfortably defeated United in Rome two years ago, Guardiola had been in the job not quite 12 months. Ferguson will not want another lesson in tactical composure from a man 30 years his junior, however respectful he may be.
  United began that last final with an exhilarating charge that produced five shots and a series of nervous errors from Barcelona's defenders in the first nine minutes. Then Samuel Eto'o broke away to prod the ball past Edwin van der Sar and the match was as good as settled a full hour before Lionel Messi looped his cunning header over United's horrified goalkeeper to complete the scoreline in a match that ended with a flurry of yellow cards for the frustrated losers.
  Barcelona, it is said, are even better now: more compact, more controlled and controlling, and routinely able to command more than 70% of possession, allowing their skilful players to rest on the ball while their opponents are driven to distraction and exhaustion. A personal belief, close to heresy in the current climate, is that while all this is demonstrably true, the present side lack the extra dimension provided in the last season or two of Frank Rijkaard's time at the Camp Nou by the presence alongside Messi of Eto'o, Ronaldinho and Thierry Henry, whose unpredictability and breakaway pace constituted a pretty useful Plan B.
  David Villa and Pedro Rodríguez, Messi's accomplices in Guardiola's current team, are accomplished finishers, their skills finely integrated into the attacking labyrinth created by Xavi Hernández, Andrés Iniesta and Sergio Busquets. But on the rare occasions when the current Barcelona find themselves in a tactical stalemate, they have problems conjuring an alternative approach.
  Before Ferguson's players can hope to profit from such a situation, they must first create the stalemate. Lying awake in recent weeks, the manager's principal concern must have been the centre of his midfield. Should he play two men there, with two others wide and two up front, or try a straight match-up with Barcelona's trio? The key figures will be Giggs, a far more effective player now than the one who endured a rotten night in Rome, Michael Carrick, who seems to have recovered some of the qualities that persuaded United to invest £18m five years ago, and Darren Fletcher, a Ferguson favourite for big matches.
  Fletcher, whose absence from the 2009 final through suspension was a key factor in United's failure to compete with Barcelona, missed most of March and all of April with a "mystery virus". The 27-year-old Scot returned to play the last 20 minutes of the second leg of the Champions League semi-final against Schalke on 4 May, and was given the whole 90 minutes against Blackpool last Sunday. He seems to have lost weight from his already lean frame, but if he is anywhere near full fitness Ferguson will rely on his driving energy and anticipation of danger to disrupt Barcelona's web-spinning before it gets going. A combination of Carrick, two months away from his 30th birthday, and the 37-year-old Giggs would not appear to present as formidable a barrier to the Catalans. It was good enough to see off Chelsea in both legs of the quarter-final and in the crucial Premier League meeting at Old Trafford a month ago, but Chelsea are not Barcelona.
  While Ferguson prefers to add a little spice to his preparations and makes a science of rotating his squad, Guardiola operates in the most serene and stable of environments. Whereas several options of formation and selection are still open to Ferguson, only last-minute injuries would disrupt Barcelona's plans. A lack of self-confidence will not be their problem; an excess of it could be. Even the humblest player might be affected by a couple of years of being told, by the credulous and the sycophantic, that he is a part of the best football team ever put on earth.
  If anything threatens the spectacle, it is the habit, common to both teams, of putting the referee under pressure. Viktor Kassai, the 35-year-old Hungarian official, may need to call on almost a decade of international experience as he is surrounded by players – one or two of them older than him – demanding favourable decisions and waving imaginary cards.
  This is Wembley's sixth European Cup final, to follow those of 1963 (won by Milan), 1968 (Busby's United), 1971 (Ajax), 1978 (Liverpool) and 1992 (Barcelona). But it is the first at the new stadium, the most expensive ever built to house football, its giant illuminated arch replacing the old twin towers as the venue's signature. With a minimum ticket price of £80, and hospitality suites going for £45,000, the match cannot help but symbolise football's new realities. It is the players who have the chance to uphold older values.
  
  

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• • Barney Ronay
  • The Guardian, Saturday 28 May 2011 <li class="history">Article history
  Lionel Messi is the prime genuis in a Barcelona team full of geniuses who face Manchester United in the Champions League final at Wembley. Photograph: Tom Jenkins for the Guardian
  
  

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• David Hytner
• guardian.co.uk, Friday 27 May 2011 22.05 BST <li class="history">Article history Pep Guardiola was in the team who won Barcelona's first European Cup at Wembley in 1992 against Sampdoria. Photograph: Eddie Keogh/Reuters
  
  Pep Guardiola stands on the brink of immortality although the notion seems to sit rather uncomfortably with him. Barcelona's coach has become a byword for humility. Yet if he could mastermind another Champions League final triumph over Manchester United, to mirror that of 2009 in Rome, he would surely have to accept such accolades reluctantly.
  Barcelona boast that they are more than a club and there has been an otherworldly quality to plenty of their teams over the years. But if Johan Cruyff's Dream Team of the early 1990s is held up as the model, and it has inspired Guardiola, then the current crop, this exhilarating class of the 21st century, is primed to outflank them.
  Despite Guardiola's extraordinary success as Barcelona's coach, it is unclear whether his journey with the club will continue after this final. Cruyff has said it "wouldn't surprise" him if the game was the 40-year-old's last in charge, and Guardiola was noncommittal last night.
  "Let's leave this for another day," he said. "When you win, you can look at the future more calmly but it all takes its toll one way or another. It's three or four years going non-stop, that's the way it is. When you win, at least it lets you keep going."
  This has been a draining season for Guardiola, largely because of the presence of José Mourinho in the Real Madrid dugout. The El Clásico series took it out of Guardiola on several levels and, with the worry lines deepening, he was caught by an Italian TV channel saying the season would be his last at the club.
  If Wembley proves to be Guardiola's farewell to Barcelona, it would be a fitting departure point. He was part of the Cruyff Dream Team that beat Sampdoria 1-0 there courtesy of Ronald Koeman's extra-time free-kick to win the club's first European Cup in 1992. It was a memorable night in so many ways and, on a personal level, Guardiola, who brought his smooth style to the central midfield battle zone, might recall the ovation he enjoyed when he was substituted minutes after Koeman's goal. He has certainly been touched by Wembley's magic.
  Cryuff's team, for all their league titles, could not add to their solitary success in Europe's elite competition. That is now the incentive for Guardiola who claimed, with characteristic modesty, that his side "can never compete with the Dream Team &#8230; they started this".
  "There have been many great teams, it's a long history and it's impossible to compare," Guardiola said on Friday night. "We hope we can be proud in the future &#8211; that in the next five, 10 or 15 years, people will remember this team and say 'one time I saw this team ...' It's like a great film &#8211; only with the passing of time can you know if a film is good, and it's the same with us."
  Lionel Messi is the undoubted star yet the supporting cast also has the licence to thrill. Wembley hopes to stage a classic.
  "We have the audience of the world and we have to show we deserve this credit of 'the final of the decade'," Guardiola said. "When you play in a final and both teams want to win and both want to play, for the rest of the world it will be a good final. [United] have their strength, we have our skill, and we have to see who controls the situation best. If we play as we did in Rome, this time we won't win. We played worse in Rome than we wanted to. We need to play much better than in 2009 and this is the thing I've told my players over the past couple of days."
  Guardiola's only selection decision involves whether to start with Eric Abidal at left-back or Javier Mascherano at centre-half, with Carles Puyol accommodated accordingly. Barcelona, as ever, are here to play. Victory would define an era.
  
  

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