Rome Heartbreak

I am Lionel, hear me roar!

This was the dream final any football fan would be dripping their saliva about. The amount of talents in both teams are simply mouth-watering. Just say the names of Lionel Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo, and we will get a floodgate of discussions on both of them. Two of probably the biggest Titans in football enters the gladiator ring in the Colosseum to pit it out for the biggest prize of the European season. It's the English Champions against the Spanish Champions. The British Navy vs. the Spanish Armada. Lol..I'm feeling all Elizabethan again. =p

United began the match with a scintillating charge towards the goal. The quick blitz enabled Anderson to secure a free kick for Ronaldo to take within the first few minutes. It was right on target and Victor Valdes palmed the ball away. The rebound fell to Park and that could have just been a simple tap-in to put United 1-0 up. But nooooooooo..he blasted it vertically upwards. That would prove to be costly and the miss indeed came back to haunt them. The psychological effect against Barca would have been tremendous. The opening minutes saw United dominating for a moment. They were in the process of missing a good chance when Barca counterattacked back. Eto squeezed through the wings and Vidic desperately clawed back to stop him. It was that one second of concentration lapse from Vidic that allowed Eto to be ahead of him in the sprint. One twist of the body, he rams the ball past Van der Sar at the 10th minute. Michael desperately slid back but it was too late already. And United never did recover back from there as Barca rampaged through.

Much had to be said about how Fergie placed his starting line-up. This time's first eleven is far less impressive than last year's against Chelsea. For some weird reason or so, Fergie decided to start Park and Anderson and he even used a 4-3-3 line up for that. Maybe for Park, it's to reward him for his recent good form but Anderson to start?! Tevez should definitely have started. And maybe Scholes too. I have a feeling that Fergie could be trying to deplete Barca's stamina before throwing in Tevez and Berbatov later for the sucker punch. If that's his tactic, it was well in the dustbin the moment Eto scored at the 10th minute. The consequences of this is that the midfield area is totally raped. Anderson and Park will never have a chance against Xavi and Iniesta. Both Spanish maestros can keep possesion of the ball till kingdom comes..lol.

The whole positioning of the United squad is all over the place. The awareness of each other's positioning was just bad. Everytime one of them got the ball, there's no one there to support. Defence was awful too. They were slow to close down Barca and allowed all their best dudes to penetrate deep into the United half. For a team like Barca, there must always be constant shadowing and man-marking pressure against their star men. United failed in that aspect many times and in the process, failed to constrict Barca's flow too. A half-fit Ferdinand equals to a no-go Ferdinand seriously. Messi's rare-headed goal which killed the game could have been prevented by Ferdinand or any other defender for that matter. Ferdinand was ball-watching at that time and Messi was totally unmarked. Really unmarked!! Even Steve Bruce could score with his extra calories if I throw him back onto the field again.

I wouldn't say Barca's defender is fantastic enough to stop United's attack. It's United's attackers who took it upon themselves time after time for granted when they go forward. Ronaldo was not up to the mark, Park was not sharp enough and Rooney often had to run back to cover the inefficiencies of his defenders. Tevez was just placed too late inside. Barca's defence consisted merely of pushing upwards for a continuous attack and left no space for United to breathe or build up their returning counterattack. Man Utd were also used to playing the typical British long ball game and focuses more on physicality as compared to Barca's Spanish style of one touch short passing football that relied much on first touch skills. United could still win with the long ball approach, but it can only succeed if the defence was solid enough to shut down Barca. The presence of a defensive anchorman like Hargreaves or in the past, Keane is indeed sorely missed. If I were to choose the best United player on the field for that night, it would be van der Sar. That's because Barca would have scored 2 or 3 more had it not being for his fantastic saves. When Henry had tormented and bypass the defenders, van der Sar came up to be a reliable person to block the shots.

It's disappointing really to see how Man Utd approached the game. But as they say, you don't strike gold twice in a row. Even Liverpool's second time against Milan didn't end on a positive note. Barca deserved their win. They played well, was the better team and they showed their hunger to win the prize. They were outstanding on the pitch. Haha..on a statistical note, the last time Barca won the Champions League was also against an English side. Wenger's Gooners and Henry was on the losing side at that time. Now, Henry's on the winning side, and he got his Champions League medal that he had craved for. And he can proudly look back and say "That's why I left the Emirates and Wenger's Gooner troop." Pique was on the winning side last year and he was also on the winning side this year. Fortunate kid..hehe, but I felt that Man Utd really lost a potential star defender when they let him return back to Barcelona.

Oh well, football season has ended. Perhaps Man Utd can try again to reach the Champions League final next season but it's not going to be easy. I don't think any team has reached the final 3 times consecutive. That's just too monopolising..lol. Anyways, this period of break will have lots of stuff to be settled, particularly Tevez. Ohh...and also let all the rumour wars begin. It's the fertile period for tabloids once again for transfer speculations =p