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Barca outclass Man Utd
Barcelona won this year's UEFA Champions League after outclassing Manchester United in the final played in Rome this morning.
Whilst Barca did not look as convincing in the two-legged semi against Chelsea, they turned on the heat against the English champions to produce a classic display of football.
I think Man U started very well in the first eight minutes or so and they looked like they were going to dominate the match but once Barca scored through Samuel Eto'o they took hold of the match for the rest of the game and could have scored more than two goals.
Interestingly Man United's start looked very similar to the start Arsenal had at the Emirates in the semi-final match against Man U before they also fizzled out after the bright start.
Last season Barca were stopped from reaching the final after they were knocked out by the eventual winners Man U but this time they had their sweet revenge.
Although people talk a lot about Lionel Messi and rightly so, I think it is Andres Iniesta who makes the whole difference with the way he dominates midfield.
Manchester United's midfield had no answer for him and together with Xavi they took control of the match and in the process made the Barca makeshift defence look so brilliant.
It was good to have a champions league final between champions from the respective leagues but with the way Barca played they made Man U look so ordinary.
Looking at the whole season I think Barca deserved to win although some may argue that they were very fortunate to go past Chelsea.
It will be interesting to see if the Catalan giants will continue in the same vein of form next season and if they do then they will keep the trophy for some time.
For the Old Trafford side, I think it was a reality check and to be fair this is probably the toughest opposition they have faced in the competition this season and they came short.
Congratulations to Barcelona on their treble and I think they deserved the trophy to cap their wonderful season.
I was not surprised to see ManU played off the park the way they did because they had an easy draw on their way to the final. Imagine they played Porto and Arsenal on the way to the final and compared to Barcelona who had to play Bayern Munich and then Chelsea. But its good the better team won. I also hope the final settled the argument about the best player in the world - its not Ronaldo.
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People must give Man U credit for the way they played. We played in a way that allowed Barcelona to play the way they played. If we had done a Chelsea against then there was no way they would have played the way they did.
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Agreed Manu, Man Utd did not resort to negative tactics in order to stifle Barcelona but they decided to play their own game which made the match open and therefore interesting for everybody.
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I don't think it was an easy win over Porto Jason, but yes against Arsenal it looked too easy for a semi-final match.
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I think that Manchester United just never got going on the day and I also think that Sir Alex didn't get the balance of the team right. I don't think it was right to start with Giggs, he could have come in as a sub and why did Rooney spent so much time on the wing when it was so obvious he was very ineffective in that position. By the time he got the team sort of right, the game had already slipped.
Having said that I also think Barcelona were very good on the day but I think United will come back stronger in the next campaign.
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Thanks for the comment Tyler, I think you are right that on the day Barca were way better but it will be interesting to see who gets signed this time at Old Trafford to get Man Utd better. Giggs and Scholes are not getting any younger and I think we may see some new midfielders added to the team for next seasons's competition.
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