RED11.ORG

It was forty three years ago on Derby Day; I still have the ticket which cost me twenty one match tokens and ten shillings (50p). Low behind the goal by the players’ tunnel I got a good view of Bobby Charlton’s header and of Georgie’s disallowed goal but could see almost nothing up the other end. The equaliser, Stepney’s two saves, the three goals in a stunning eight minutes were to me but distant events conducted through tiny figures, their adventures illuminated by the delayed groans and roars of the crowd behind me.

Worst of all I did not truly savour our finest hour; the elation had been soured by the loss of my first love days beforehand and I was standing on the crowded Football Special back to Manchester a pensive young man, feeling detached from the drunken cavorting around me and worrying about my university chemistry exam the next morning. I was young, how was I to know that it would be thirty one years before I got to see United in the final again?

That was my first visit to Wembley. This is my eighteenth. I feel an old hand, a seasoned traveller. The Metropolitan Line train is packed and sweltering without air conditioning. Olympic Way is crowded and slow; you can’t get a beer or a programme. The entry to the stadium is delayed as hundreds of fans are trying to scam their way in and are being turned away. It is a huge relief when my ticket goes into the slot and the green light comes on. There are Barcelona fans in our end; so much for segregation. Inside you still can’t get a beer or a programme. The worst fizzy drink I have ever tasted costs six times my 1968 match ticket and it comes in a cardboard cup.

When I get in sight of the pitch though, Norman Foster’s stadium looks magnificent in the evening sunshine as if it were built for this supreme clash rather than for tawdry parochial semi-finals. My £150 (plus administration charge!) has bought me a place a few rows from the front of the top tier above the corner, from which I can see everything. Not all scammers have failed; the extra fans remain undetected by stewards because we stand for the entire match.

Out on the pitch this year’s ridiculous pre-match Euro-poncing consists of racial stereotypes in bowler hats with umbrellas. Arriving only an hour before the start I appear to have missed the Manchester United Television video which I had deliberately avoided on the Internet in order to enjoy it to the full on the night itself. Time passes; some rapper, then that silly blanket-shaking ceremony and UEFA’s dramatic paean to lasagne.

The United team is one which most of us would probably have picked although it means that we are not fielding the Premier League’s top scorer, Dimitar Berbatov, or top provider, Nani. The shock is that Berbatov has not even made the bench.

When at last the play begins it is a most astonishing thing. Our players are chasing and harrying and the team that some believe is the greatest the world has seen is forced into elementary errors, losing the ball, miscuing into touch. Patrice Evra is looking lively up the left flank, Ryan Giggs, Wayne Rooney and Javier Hernández are mobile and dangerous around the edge of the area, Michael Carrick is winning tackles, Ji-Sung Park is running to paradise.

Javier Hernández blasts Carrick’s cross over the bar; it turns out to be his only shot. Edwin Van der Sar’s long punt sees Rooney through but Víctor Valdéz is sharp and pulls off a superb clearance at the edge of the area. Javier Hernández latches on to Giggs’ pass and Gerard Piqué is unaware that his goalkeeper has come so far out. Valdéz is perhaps lucky to get a foot to the ball but it is to be Piqué’s sole error and from this moment if Valdéz was to leave the stadium to enjoy a paella it would make no difference to the result. We are about to be smitten as if we have not learned our lesson in Rome.

By the time Rio is inspired to make a brilliant tackle on David Villa the play is more even. By the time the ball hits Evra’s hand in the area Barcelona are on top and by the time Xavi Hernández crosses for Pedro Rodríguez to shoot hastily wide at the near post fifteen minutes have passed and the official statistics show 66% possession to the Catalans, a ratio they hold until the last fifteen minutes.

Worse, when we are on top we get near their area, when they are on top they create exciting chances. When we are on top it is through quick interpassing as they press us with great energy; when they are on top they have the time to pass coolly and accurately to each other as a great gap seems to open between our front players and our midfield.

The pressure increases in tempo and quality; Lionel Messi dribbles through three players like Georgie Best and we are saved by a superb tackle on Pedro by Nemanja Vidi?. The brilliance of our two central defenders persuades Villa to shoot from further out; he misses, though not by far. When we at last get the ball Park wellies it forward for Javier Hernández to add to his growing collection of offside decisions, when they have it Xavi gives it to Villa, who skips around Evra; van der Sar just gets down to it.

Rooney’s run up the left results in him crossing to Park, whose movement has earned him space in the area but whose control off the chest is not up to the half-chance. Back they come, Rio proving good enough, just, to stop Messi with a clinical tackle. An agitated Sir Alex Ferguson comes off the bench to the technical area but you don’t have to be a coach to see that whatever the plan was, it needs assistance from a higher power than he.

He sees Rooney fail to win van der Sar’s punt, he sees Andrés Iniesta elude Carrick’s stretching leg and find Xavi, whose run through the middle is powerful and purposeful. We appear to have no left back; Xavi’s ball is unerring and lethal and we all watch in horror as Pedro takes it without challenge. Vidi? tries to reach him but Pedro’s shot is low and hard inside the near post; 27 minutes 0-1.

United, however, regain momentum. From a Barcelona throw-in near the corner flag on our right Rio wins the challenge and Rooney takes the ball and runs infield, giving and receiving with Carrick and then Giggs. The return from Giggs he hits first time, eighteen yards, right foot, around Piqué. For one throb of the artery we look the part; 34 minutes 1-1.

Barcelona do not look so cocky now, but to beat this team every one of your men has to play his best and we have a wandering full back and Antonio Valencia, normally so effective, a brimborion; he can be seen standing mesmerised as the play goes on around him.

Evra on the other flank collects superbly but then miskicks. In contrast Villa takes a slickly rehearsed free kick which Pedro is inches short of touching into the goal, Messi runs through the middle and just fails to connect with Pedro’s cross. Half time comes, however, and we are still level; could the impossible come to pass?

United come out first, eager to restart but Barcelona kick off and take immediate command, Javier Mascherano haring unchallenged down that left flank of ours, we unable to clear our lines until Rooney bulldozes his way through Piqué. We have not yet won even a corner kick as van der Sar does well to save from Dani Alvez.

Despite the signs, the goal comes as a shock. When Iniesta gives Messi the ball there appears no greater danger than when any double European Footballer of the Year is given it, but Evra ignores his captain’s advice and backs off and the new Alfredo Di Stéfano uses his hesitant opponent as a screen and shoots low and hard from twenty yards. Vidi? goes for the block but is beaten by the pace; our goalkeeper gets but a soft hand to it; 54 minutes 1-2.

Heads slump, some now have no thought of victory but the United bench is inert when action is needed. Berbatov, if he can bear to watch, must be deeply frustrated. Nani must be as keen to come on and try his skill as we are to have him. Van der Sar does well to save Messi’s shot on the turn. Alvez dribbles past Evra and cuts the ball back to Messi on the six yard line but Fábio stabs it clear, injuring himself in the process.

Thus, when Nani comes on it is for the limping full back and not for the overawed winger, who moves to right back. Nani’s arrival heralds his final assist of the season. He makes a challenge as Messi dribbles in from the left but Carrick’s ball back to him is as surprising as it is unwise; it rebounds off his shin to Villa who lets fly from twenty yards an unstoppable shot, bending away from the ‘keeper; 69 minutes 1-3.

Around me there is grudging admiration for our opponents as well as pain at the cruel exposition of our midfield. When Paul Scholes comes on for Carrick he gives us some cause for pride and we produce our best of the day. Rooney’s chip is over the bar, Valdéz gets first to Giggs’ superb through ball as Javier Hernández closes, Nani runs the edge of the area and shoots over, Rooney and Nani combine up the right and nearly get Javier Hernández in.

Is this improvement a glimpse of what might have been or simply a reflection that Barcelona are on a bummel? A cheeky Iniesta chip apart, they content themselves with timewasting, exaggerating injury and taking ages to substitute players; they really do have every aspect of the game sewn up; they bring to you memories of half forgotten innocent old places yet if you choose the belluine path they will better you at that, too. When up on the top tier I suggest that we should remember 1999 and need only two minutes of added time to equalise, I am met with wan smiles. We sing what is lost and dread what has been won.

Rio and Vidi?, Fábio and Rooney and at the end Scholes, playing his last game, stood with equal dignity and courage in the whirling rout. When interviewed before the match Barcelona manager Pep Guardiola was asked which Manchester player he would most like to sign. He responded as if it were a stupidly obvious question; Paul Scholes. I watch the players in the greatest team on earth asking especially for his shirt; he exchanges with Iniesta.

As to the others, it is invidious to point to good, loyal men who might have played better and certainly so to blame those whose best was insufficient. The player who bears the greatest blame is Arsenal’s Nicklas Bendtner. If in April he had had the presence of mind to convert that chance at the Camp Nou, Barcelona would have been out of the competition and we would have won it. Even the greatest need a bit of luck.

I left the Catalans to celebrate. They must do so without reserve, with the hot blood of youth, without memories out of season of love lost, because one day, maybe sooner than they think, this wonder of theirs will be a memory, dust carried on the wind.

Gone was the cheery pre-match badinage down Olympic Way, replaced by bavardage concerning the greatness of our conquerors. They are undoubtedly the best around and may go on to show that they are the best there has ever been. We must take defeat, but how can we compete? This year they will plough back the profit into improvement. Not for them £80 million pocket money for avaricious owners and a similar amount to service the debt with which these plundering adventurers have saddled us all so that they can live in luxury.

Ferguson, obsessed to the end, has responded to the seemingly impossible challenge and will stay on. Grey truth is now our painted toy yet still he turns his restless head lest all his toiling breeds only new dreams. Dream, dream, for this is also sooth.

Paul Andrew James