thefonz on 27/5/2009 at 20:20
Anyone else watching this?
Not the game everyone was hoping for; but then it never would have been given the insane hype the media gave it. Its watchable but by no means a classic.
I didn't know Manchester City made it to the final this season...
rachel on 27/5/2009 at 20:23
Not following it, I don't like football. But I live in Barcelona, so I'm forced to follow it by proxy. From my window it looks like they're winning, so no sleep tonight with all the rejoicing in the streets. Feel my pain ;)
edit; Yep, they did. :)
Tomi on 27/5/2009 at 20:44
The better team definitely won tonight, and the game wasn't that bad in my opinion... then again it's always a pleasure to watch Man United lose. :p
thefonz on 27/5/2009 at 21:36
Qudos to Pep Guardialo. Further proof that good footballers generally do make good managers.
Man Utd definately had the wrong starting lineup though.
D'Juhn Keep on 27/5/2009 at 22:08
It was quite a struggle naming the Utd team after the match as several players were completely invisible
D'Arcy on 27/5/2009 at 23:31
United lasted ten minutes. As soon as Eto'o scored, the game was over.
Haplo on 28/5/2009 at 00:14
Ferguson made his biggest mistake even before the match started, by putting Park on the right and sending Ronaldo too deep in the centre. Ronaldo plays his best when he rips the midfield apart, not when he has to wait to be fed. Ferguson should have started with Tevez and Ronaldo floating on the right and centre. He did bring in Tevez in the second half, but he sent Park to the left (where he has no idea how to play). While Messi was having the time of his life on the other side, Ronaldo was waiting for the balls that usually didn't come (and if they did, Puyol ate them before he could even see them). When Ferguson realized Park hadn't even touched the ball in the past 15 minutes he changed him with another wrong choice called Berbatov. Now United had 3.5 forward guys, Ferguson forgetting that this brute-force approach works only if you have either overwhelming possession or your defenders can connect to your forwards; neither was the case for United.
Add to that some horrible defending, look at Messi's goal for example. At such a high level of competition you can not give a player this much space and still live to claim championship.
Basically Guardiola outplayed Ferguson the same way that Ferguson had outplayed Wenger earlier. Thousands of Man United flags for sale, almost new, waved only for ten minutes.
D'Juhn Keep on 28/5/2009 at 09:06
^^^
This is a really good post
I maintain what I said last night, some Man Utd players just weren't there. Did Carrick do absolutely anything last night? Anderson and Giggs were also absent. Granted, they're against some great players but they're hardly second rate themselves; ditto with the horrible defending Messi's great but he should never ever be able to find that much space for a header.
D'Arcy on 28/5/2009 at 12:44
I notice that the players you're mentioning are all midfielders. I believe that United tried to avoid having the ball in midfield as much as possible, because that's one of Barcelona's strongest arguments, and instead went for direct football most of the time. That might explain why those players were hardly ever in the game (when they didn't have the ball, they just enjoyed the ride on the magic roundabout that is Barcelona's midfield passing the ball around).
Yell Piranha on 28/5/2009 at 22:38
My view (which doesnt seem to be shared by the press) is that it was simply a case of Barcelona turning up and Man Utd not doing so. Almost all of their players looked a little jaded and they just didnt play.
Barcelona were good but Man Utd didnt bring their A game (Fergie included...Giggs should never have started).
