Quest for glory: United board their plane to Rome for the
Champions League final
Manchester
United arrived in Rome on Monday. That,
in itself, is an achievement. Not making the journey, but getting
here, to this point, to this match. They will not be satisfied with
anything less than victory, of course, but merely by appearing in
consecutive Champions League finals they will have bucked a trend.
The hard part, it could be argued, has been done.
Since the European Cup became the Champions League and
incorporated group places and additional teams from the major
countries, no team have retained the title and only Juventus and
Valencia have been in back-to-back finals.
Before Manchester United, the previous four winners of the
Champions League — Porto, Liverpool,
Barcelona and AC Milan — were eliminated in the first knock-out
round of 16 the following season.
In this campaign, Manchester United played Inter Milan, the
champions of Italy, at that stage and won comfortably.
It was a sign. Here was a different animal, a club with a squad
so strong they could resist fatigue, and a manager so driven he
would not allow his players to stand still
Make no mistake, if Manchester United beat Barcelona tomorrow,
it will be the most significant victory by an English club in
European competition.
There are two English teams who have retained their title as
champions of Europe: Liverpool in 1977 and 1978 and Nottingham
Forest in 1979 and 1980.
These were fabulous achievements, too; but they do not compare
to Manchester United keeping the prize in the 21st century.
Liverpool played 16 games to win their back-to-back crowns,
Nottingham Forest played 18.
Manchester United are on a run of 25 games, and will need to
make it 26 against a Barcelona team who have laid waste to the
record books in Spain.
It is often stated that there are no easy games in football, but
there are, and there were, and a number of them occurred in the
early rounds of the old European Cup.
Not any more.
English clubs may have made it look simple in recent seasons,
but the calibre of opposition is tougher than at any time
before.
The random factor, the soft draw, has all but been
eliminated.
To reach this stage, across two seasons, Manchester United have
played Sporting Lisbon, Roma, Dynamo Kiev, Lyon, Roma, Barcelona,
Chelsea,
Villarreal, AaB Aalborg, Celtic, Inter
Milan, Porto, Arsenal and, now, Barcelona.
Winning in 1977 and 1978, Liverpool faced Crusaders,
Trabzonspor, St Etienne, FC Zurich, Borussia Moenchengladbach,
Dynamo Dresden, Benfica, Borussia Moenchengladbach and FC
Brugge.
Nottingham Forest played Liverpool, AEK Athens, Grasshopper,
Cologne, Malmo, Osters IF Vaxjo, Arges Pitesti, Dynamo Berlin, Ajax
and Hamburg.
For at least two of those teams, answers on a postcard,
please.
Those who said Sweden and Romania, go to the top of the
class.
This is not to decry the successes of previous generations.
A team can only win a tournament in the format that is
available; who is to say that the great Liverpool team would not
have emerged triumphant across 26 games in two seasons, too?
Yet even those involved in the old competition acknowledge that
the modern Champions League presents a more stringent examination
of a team than did the European Cup.
Mark Lawrenson also travelled to Rome on Monday, scene of his
victory as a player with Liverpool in 1984.
He said that while the old European Cup could throw up a rogue
draw against serious opposition early in the competition — the
biggest clubs are now protected by the seeding system — the sheer
volume of strong, wealthy opponents in the Champions League now
makes it a different proposition.
‘When we beat Roma, we knew Falcao, their Brazilian player, and
maybe one other, but that was about it,’ Lawrenson recalled.
‘As for the rest of them, we didn’t have a clue. 'Now, you know
everything about the opposition, and they know everything about
you. 'That professionalism has gone up a level, which makes it
harder.’
United touchdown in Rome ahead of Wednesday's clash
against Barcelona
Those who espouse the difficulty of the old format, with
the presence of instant knockout rounds from the start, often make
the argument that a modern Champions League team can afford to lose
the odd game, while the European Cup competitor could
not.
History does not bear this out, either. Manchester United have
not lost a single match across these two years, winning 15 and
drawing 10 of 25.
Compare that to Liverpool, who lost four of their 16, or
Nottingham Forest, who lost two in 18, and drew four.
Any game played across two legs carries the potential for defeat
and then retrieval and Liverpool exercised it in the unlikeliest
places, not least Trabzonspor in Turkey, where they lost 1-0.
It is a myth that just one slip spelt disaster in the old
European Cup.
Liverpool lost twice on the way to the final in 1978, and played
only seven matches.
That year, they received a bye in the first round, meaning that
a solitary win against Dynamo Dresden of East Germany at Anfield —
they lost the away leg 2-1 — was enough to put the team in the
quarter-finals.
The Kop may join Michel Platini, the UEFA president, in
romanticising the old days, but in victory, the case for United as
the greatest of all champions would be a compelling one.
