A worthy champion in a most entertaining 90 minutes of quality soccer.

Final Score: Barcelona 2, Manchester United 0

The Ratings, on a scale of 1 (diabolical) to 10 (world-class):

Manchester United

Goalkeeper

Edwin van der sar
Beaten to short side on Eto’s opening goal. Grade: 4

Defenders

Patrice Evra
Pressed forward a few times in the first 45, created some chances with little result. Grade: 4

Rio Ferdinand
Rock solid in the middle. Grade: 4

Nemanja Vidic
Stellar season for the Serbian may have been ruined when Eto’o cut around him for Barca’s first goal. Grade: 3

John O’Shea
Henry wasn’t much of a challenge — until he was. No threat going forward. Grade: 2

Midfielders

Christiano Ronaldo
Not much room to navigate, still probably the only United player in first 45 to show any initiative. Seemed to lose interest as the result became clear. Didn’t play like the world player of the year. Grade: 3

Anderson
Was on the field but invisible in the first half. Replaced by Tevez for second half. Grade: 2

Ryan Giggs
See above. Grade: 3

Ji-Sung Park
Had little room to run in the first 45. Lifted midway through second half. Grade: 4

Michael Carrick
Some ghastly touches. Grade: 4

Paul Scholes
Late replacement for Giggs. Grade: Incomplete

Forwards

Wayne Rooney
Nonfactor in first 45. Make that the entire 90. Grade: 4

Carlos Tévez
Replaced an ineffective Anderson for second half. Grade: Incomplete

Dimitar Berbatov
Replaced Park in 67th. Grade: Incomplete

Coach

Sir Alex Ferguson
Seemed to be as stunned as his players. Three changes in second half to little effect. Another Premier League title is little solace. Grade: 5

Substitutes/Did Not Play

Tomasz Kuszczak (GK), Nani, Rafael, Jonny Evans.

Barcelona

Goalkeeper

Victor Valdés
Nearly spit the bit early in the game. Goal seemed to settle down everyone in blue and red. Grade: 5

Defenders

Gerald Piqué
Solid, if unspectacular. Not that there’s anything wrong with that. Grade: 7

Carles Puyol
Blanketed Rooney in first 45. Played like the veteran captain he is. Grade: 7

Sylvinho
Pressure was on early. Stood up to it. Grade: 7

Yaya Touré
Quiet, confident, impressive. Grade: 7

Midfielders

Andrés Iniesta
The midfield engine that powers Barca. Grade: 8

Sergio Busquets
Unsung stalwart in middle of the field for Barca. Solid, unspectacular, but indispensible.
Grade: 8

Xavi Hernández
With Iniesta, proved to be too much for United to handle in the midfield. Grade: 9

Pedro Rodríguez
Late replacement for Iniesta. Grade: Incomplete

Forwards

Lionel Messi
Simply incredible ball control. Dangerous personified. Lived up to all the hype. Grade: 9

Samuel Eto’o
One chance, one goal. Any questions? Grade: 9

Thierry Henry
Not much of a factor early. Valiant to start after dealing with an injury the past few weeks. Picked up the pace in the second half. Grade: 6

Kieta
Late relief for Henry. Grade: Incomplete

Coach

Pep Guardiola
Whatever he had to say to his club before the game and throughout an incredible season did the trick. With a hobbled defense, he encouraged his players play to their strength, which is going forward. Grade: 10

Substitutes/Did Not Play

José Pinto (GK), Martin Cáceres, Eidur Gujohnsen, Bojan Krkic, Marc Muniesa.

Champions League Final: Player Ratings

“I think the first goal was a killer for us,” Ferguson told ITV. “We started brightly too. We got a bit nervous after that.”

United did make a good start but Samuel Eto’o netted after 10 minutes and the English side faded badly, with their defence looking especially shaky, and Lionel Messi wrapped up victory midway through the second half.

“The first goal didn’t help that’s for sure,” Ferguson said at a news conference. “It gave them the opportunity to keep possession, which they do well.

“We didn’t deal with it well enough. That really was the story. I think there’s a disappointment in the performance and some individuals will say that themselves.”

The Scot, who lashed out at a reporter for asking if he still had the desire to win, could only marvel at Barca’s passing ability.

BAD GOAL

“At the start of game we did really well,” he said. “It was a bad goal to lose. You’ve got to give credit to a very good Barca team. If they get in front of you they’re difficult to beat.

“All the midfield players got possession of the ball and made it very difficult for us to get it back. When we did get possession after the goal we didn’t do well enough with it.”

He added: “They are among the best at what they do. They pursue their philosophy and don’t change.”

United rarely fail to score and Ferguson had no explanation.

“We had plenty of time,” Ferguson told ITV. “We had some half-chances in the second half but in fairness we were beaten by a better team.”

He also told Sky Sports: “They were two bad goals to lose at this level especially when we have really excelled defending this season.”

United central defender Rio Ferdinand said his team, who failed to become the first to defend the trophy in the Champions League era, had not produced their best football.

“I don’t think there’s one of us out there can say we played well to be honest, as individuals or collectively,” he said.

“(The first goal) was a bit of a sucker punch. We’d had a few good chances before that.

“But no excuses, not on today’s performance. They were the better team. Special moments decide these games and they were deserved winners today.”

Defeated Ferguson praises pass masters Barcelona

Barcelona controlled the ball for long stretches with its unhurried and clever passing, attacked incessantly, held tight with a patchwork defense and made a tactical switch at forward, placing Lionel Messi as a central striker and shifting Samuel Eto’o to the right wing. Eventually, Messi drifted into midfield to secure possession. Both he and Eto’o delivered goals as Barcelona won its third European title and second in four years.

It will be left to Barcelona’s supporters to gleefully debate whether this is the Catalans’ greatest team, now that the first-year coach Pep Guardiola has guided his squad to the Spanish League title, the Spanish Cup and now the European Cup with a style that is familiarly elegant and ebullient. For a night, it was enough for Barcelona fans — seemingly the vast majority among 72,000 at Olympic Stadium — to celebrate with cameras that flashed like fireflies as the trophy was held aloft in a shower of confetti.

“We are not the best team of history, but we have played the best season in history to win three titles and the way we won,” said Guardiola, 38, who has won a European championship both as a Barcelona player and coach.

Manchester United, meanwhile, lost for the first time in 26 Champions League matches and failed to defend its 2008 title. Even with four attackers in the second half, the English Premier League champions often seemed lethargic, uninvolved — at times unrecognizable — after missing several chances in the early minutes of the game.

So strong and constrictive on most nights, the Manchester United defense was unable to subdue the organized and creative Barcelona attack, which flowed with the inevitability of water through any available crease. Sir Alex Ferguson, the Manchester manager, dismissed his defense as “shoddy.”

Guardiola had urged his Barcelona players to be daring, and after the victory said, “We wanted to say we played and were not being cowards.” He added, “There’s nothing more dangerous than not taking risks.”

Barcelona’s one apparent weakness, a depleted defense, never became a liability. Dani Alves and Éric Abidal were suspended and Rafael Márquez was shelved with injury. But Guardiola found a reliable solution, placing Carles Puyol at right back, Yaya Touré in central defense alongside Gerard Piqué and Sylvinho at left back. They remained impenetrable.

Guardiola made another adroit move up front. Last year in the Champions League semifinals, Manchester United’s left back, Patrice Evra, had handcuffed Messi on the right wing. On Wednesday, Guardiola countered with Messi as a central striker, moving Eto’o outside. Later, Messi retreated into midfield and, along with Xavi Hernández, helped Barcelona control the ball as if it were tethered to his foot. Sometimes, it seemed minutes passed before Manchester United could regain possession from the smaller, more dexterous Barcelona players.

“If they get in front of you, they’re very difficult to beat,” Ferguson said. “They can keep the ball in areas of the field where it is difficult to protect.”

Early on, it was Manchester United that threatened to dominate. After missing several inviting opportunities, though, the team deflated, never regaining its spirit and vigor.

In the second minute, forward Cristiano Ronaldo drove a low, hard free kick that bounced and could not be smothered by Victor Valdés, the Barcelona goalkeeper. Park Ji-sung, Manchester United’s tireless winger and the first Asian player to participate in a Champions League final, pounced on the rebound, but a Barcelona defender slid across his path. The shot deflected high over the crossbar. Ronaldo later lashed two shots wide, unfulfilled chances that Manchester United could not afford.

“Losing that first goal was decisive for us,” Ferguson said. “We couldn’t recover from that.”

Barcelona quickly struck back. In the 10th minute, midfielder Andrés Iniesta, recovered from a thigh injury, played the ball to Eto’o on the right flank. Eto’o, a Cameroonian forward, cut sharply inside, turning the defender Nemanja Vidic, leaving him corkscrewed and helpless. Eto’o punched the ball into the net off the left hand of Manchester United goalkeeper Edwin van der Sar, giving Barcelona the only goal it would need.

After halftime, Manchester United clearly needed an infusion of energy, but neither the replacement forwards Carlos Tévez nor Dimitar Barbatov could kick-start a somnolent engine.

And soon the game fell out of reach.

In the 70th minute, Puyol stole a pass for Barcelona, beginning a magical sequence that finished with Xavi chipping a superb pass from outside the area to a waiting Messi, six yards from the goal, unattended by two defenders. He headed the ball over van der Sar’s head and Barcelona took an insurmountable 2-0 lead. Now it is Messi, not Ronaldo, who is certain to gain favor as the world’s greatest player.

“We didn’t have to win to know he’s the best,” Guardiola said.

In the end, though, Barcelona did win, primarily by getting the ball and refusing to give it back.

“For us, we are a horrible team, a disaster team, when we don’t have the ball,” Guardiola said. “We need the ball. We got it.”

Mesmerizing Barcelona Beat Manchester United With Style in Champions League Final

Busacca was the official in last season’s semi-final first leg between both sides and was criticised by Ferguson for not awarding a second penalty after Cristiano Ronaldo missed an earlier one.

The United boss had raged after Ronaldo appeared to be up-ended inside the area in the first half during the goalless draw at the Nou Camp: “I thought it was a penalty. The world and his wife would think that.

It’s hard enough to ask for one penalty. You’re doing well if you get one. To ask for two…well, I wasn’t surprised that we didn’t get it.”

The hope, this time, is that the centre of attraction would not be the officials but the footballing spectacle that will be put on show when world club champions, Manchester United face Barcelona in Stadio Olympico in Rome.

UEFA name Massimo Busacca to referee finals

Stirring finale

Two of European football’s most evocative names, the newly crowned champions of England and Spain, cross paths at the Stadio Olimpico with United aiming to become the first team in 19 years to successfully defend the European Champion Clubs’ Cup and the first in the UEFA Champions League era. Having already lifted the Liga and Copa del Rey this month Barcelona have the chance to claim an unprecedented Spanish treble. It promises to be one of the more stylish gladiatorial contests staged in the city of the Colosseum, with Sir Alex Ferguson saying simply: “It has the capability to be a fantastic final.”

History help

United have never lost a European Cup final while two of this competition’s three previous showpiece matches in Rome ended in an English victory. According to Sir Alex, another success is essential to justify his club’s ever-growing stature. “I’ve repeated many times we should have done better in Europe. To be in the pantheon of great teams, the prerequisite is to win this cup. It’s an opportunity for us to go alongside a lot of the great teams. This team has that type of future – it’s a young squad with the right type of experience which can do well in the next few years. Hopefully we can endorse that.”

Ferdinand return
Captain Rio Ferdinand is fit again after a calf injury, although United will be without the suspended Darren Fletcher as they bid to become the first side since AC Milan in 1989 and 1990 to land back-to-back European Cups. “We’re good at doing things for the first time,” Sir Alex added with pride. “It’s interesting and unusual that no one has defended the trophy since the Champions League started, because in the history of the European Cup it was done regularly. We have an opportunity to change that and hopefully we can take it.”

Glorious campaign
While the United boss is at the end of his 35th season as a manager, Josep Guardiola is concluding his first and, though two trophies are already in the Camp Nou cabinet, the 38-year-old – 29 years Sir Alex’s junior – is not finished yet. “It’s been a great season but it can still finish badly, there’s a lot still to do. In football things can change very suddenly. I’ve been very lucky to have a squad of players who are very good tactically and technically. We want to show how good we are and how hard we’ve worked by winning tomorrow.”

Defensive reshuffle
Barcelona’s usual full-backs Daniel Alves and Eric Abidal are suspended and Rafael Márquez has a knee injury so Yaya Touré will drop back to central defence with captain Carles Puyol filling in at right-back, Seydou Keita on the left and 20-year-old Sergi Busquets replacing Keita in midfield. Andrés Iniesta and Thierry Henry should be fit after thigh and knee problems respectively, with Guardiola adding: “If they’re OK they will play – if they’re not, they won’t. I think they’ll be there. I would have liked to have more players at my disposal but that’s how it is. It’s going to be a great final.”

UEFA Champions League

The match will be contested by Barcelona and holders Manchester United, who are the first defending champions to reach the final since Juventus in 1997, and will be looking to be the first team to retain the European Cup since Milan in 1990. This is the fifth year in a row in which the final involves at least one English team.

Barcelona opened the scoring early through Samuel Eto’o in the ninth minute, and Lionel Messi added another goal 20 minutes from the end to give Barcelona a 2–0 victory and an historic treble of La Liga, Copa del Rey and Champions League. This was Barcelona’s third victory in the competition, 17 years after they first won the European Cup in 1992.

Background

Manchester United and Barcelona have faced each other nine times in European competitions: three times in the UEFA Cup Winners’ Cup and six times in the UEFA Champions League. Of those nine matches, Manchester United have recorded three wins to Barcelona’s two, with the remaining four matches finishing in draws. The only time that the two teams have met in a final came in 1991, when they contested the 1991 Cup Winners’ Cup final. The first meeting between the two sides came in the third round of the 1983–84 Cup Winners’ Cup; Barcelona won the first leg at the Camp Nou 2–0, but Manchester United won the return leg 3–0 at Old Trafford to reach the semi-finals. That result marked Manchester United’s biggest win over Barcelona; Barcelona’s biggest win was a 4–0 home victory in the group stage of the 1994–95 Champions League. The most recent meeting between Manchester United and Barcelona came in the semi-finals of the 2007–08 Champions League, when United held Barcelona to a 0–0 draw at the Camp Nou before beating them 1–0 back at Old Trafford.

Both teams go into the match as the champions of their respective countries – the first time that the final has been contested by domestic champions since 1999, when Manchester United won at Barcelona’s home, the Camp Nou – both winning with games to spare. Manchester United won their 11th Premier League crown with a 0–0 draw at home to Arsenal on 16 May, while Barcelona were confirmed as La Liga champions for the first time in three years when Real Madrid lost to Villarreal on the same day. Both Manchester United and Barcelona will also be looking to another Champions League title to cap a season in which they have won multiple trophies: Manchester United have already won four out of a possible seven trophies in 2008–09 and are playing for the possibility of becoming the third team to retain the European Double (the domestic league and the European Cup), while Barcelona are aiming to become the first Spanish club to win a Treble of La Liga, the Copa del Rey and the UEFA Champions League.

The Stadio Olimpico in Rome had hosted three European Cup finals before 2009: the 1977 and 1984 finals, both of which were won by Liverpool – Liverpool beat Borussia Mönchengladbach 3–1 in 1977 before beating home side Roma 4–2 on penalties after the match finished 1–1 after extra time; the most recent final to be held at the Stadio Olimpico was the 1996 final, which Juventus also won 4–2 on penalties after a 1–1 draw with Ajax.

The construction of the stadium was commissioned by Italian dictator Benito Mussolini in the mid-1930s as the centrepiece of a new sports complex in the city, to be named Foro Mussolini. After the Second World War, the complex was renamed Foro Italico and the stadium was radically redesigned as a 54,000-capacity arena for the 1960 Summer Olympics. After hosting the 1987 World Athletics Championships, the stadium was redeveloped in time for the 1990 FIFA World Cup, at which it played host to West Germany’s 1–0 win over Argentina in the final. The stadium’s most recent renovation, in 2008, increased its capacity to 72,689.

Pre-match

Venue

The Stadio Olimpico in Rome was selected as the venue for the 2009 UEFA Champions League Final at a meeting of the UEFA Executive Committee in Ljubljana, Slovenia, on 4 October 2006. The committee – who decided the venue for the 2008 final and the 2008 and 2009 UEFA Cup Finals at the same meeting – based its decision on a number of factors, including stadium capacity, safety and security facilities, and accessibility.

As with every UEFA Champions League final since 1999, the 2009 final was given its own unique visual identity, designed to give a distinctive flavour of the host city. Designed by London-based design and branding agency Radiant, the theme for the 2009 final was revealed on 25 October 2008, and it incorporates several iconic Roman images; the logo is centred around an outline of the European Champion Clubs’ Cup, upon which is written “MMIX” – “2009″ in Roman numerals; around the base of the trophy is a stylised laurel wreath, and in the background is a simplified image of the interior of the Colosseum. An alternative logo consisting of the UEFA Champions League logo surrounded by a laurel wreath was also released. The entire theme is based on a colour scheme of deep red and silver-white.

Match ball

The official match ball for the 2009 Champions League final will be the adidas Finale Rome. Based on the “Starball” design that has been used for the Champions League final since 2001 and become synonymous with the UEFA Champions League, the Finale Rome was unveiled on 16 March 2009. The colour scheme is a traditional Roman burgundy with a gold border around the stars. The ball uses the same panel configuration as the Adidas Europass and the Adidas Teamgeist before it, and the same thermal bonding process is used to adhere the panels to each other, while the surface of the ball features the same “PSC-Texture” as was debuted with the Europass; the surface of the ball is covered with thousands of tiny pimples, which allegedly improve the grip between boot and ball.

Ticketing

Although the usual capacity of the Stadio Olimpico is over 72,000, this was reduced to approximately 67,000 for the 2009 UEFA Champions League Final. Approximately 10,000 tickets were made available to the general public, with recipients determined by a random ballot following an application period that ran from 2 March to 16 March 2009. Each club was also allocated approximately 20,000 tickets for distribution to fans. Manchester United chose to limit ticket applications to season ticket holders, with preference given to those who had attended more of the club’s Champions League away fixtures that season. Barcelona, meanwhile, allotted 80% of their ticket allocation to fans, with the remaining 20% going to the club’s corporate sponsors. Unlike United, however, Barcelona opened ticket applications to all members of their supporters club. The remaining 17,000 tickets will be retained by UEFA for the “European football family”, which comprises UEFA itself, the local organising committee, UEFA’s member associations, and its commercial partners. Tickets for the 2009 final will be similar to bank cards, with an integrated chip storing the ticket holder’s personal information in order to ensure that the ticket is being presented by its legitimate owner. As further security, tickets will also have to be presented with an adequate form of photographic identification.

Despite only receiving 20,000 tickets for fans, it is expected that around 30,000 Manchester United fans will be travelling to Rome for the final, leading to police warning ticketless fans not to travel amidst fears of potential hooligans making the trip. Fans have also been warned to avoid certain areas of the city that are known to be frequented by members of Rome’s Ultra fan groups. Nevertheless, despite Rome’s reputation as a hotbed of knife-related crime, UEFA is confident that the 2009 final will pass without incident.

Links

• UEFA