2009 UEFA Champions League Final

The 2009 UEFA Champions League Final will be the final match of the 2008–09 UEFA Champions League, the 54th season of the UEFA Champions League football tournament and the 17th since it was renamed from the European Champion Clubs’ Cup. The match is to be played at the 72,698-capacity Stadio Olimpico in Rome, the home of Roma and Lazio, on 27 May 2009, for the fourth time following 1977, 1984 and 1996.

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