United Given A Lesson In Football

Manchester United 1 - Barcelona 3
Scorers
Manchester United: Rooney (34)
Barcelona: Pedro (27), Messi (54), Villa (69)


Team: Van der Sar, Rio, Vidic, Fabio (Nani 69), Evra, Carrick (Scholes 77), Giggs, Park, Valencia, Rooney, Hernandez

It wasn't even close. After bossing the Premier League, United were on the wrong end of the footballing scales and a fish out of water against an incredible Barcelona team, that in my opinion is probably the best footballing side to ever grace the world.


Barring the first 10 minutes, where we worked our socks off to make a semblence of a fight, the rest of the game was all Barcelona. After finding their feet, they went on to completely and utterly dominate the ball and got a deserved lead when Pedro scored for the Catalans.

We pulled one back when they fell asleep 7 minutes later with a well worked out goal which involved Carrick, Giggs and Rooney, but that was probably all that we could muster against the masters of the game. They had such complete control of the ball that we were made to look like a pub team....a very poor pub team. I've mentioned before just how poor our midfield was, and we barely had a sniff of the ball the entire game.

While Van der Sar, Rio and Vidic had superb games to keep the scoreline respectable, Evra was missing from his position all night long. Evra's had some bad night before, but this probably has to rank right up there as one of the poorest EVER.

Barcelona's master class finally broke thru in the second half with goals from Messi and Villa. Only Van der Sar's sheer brilliance prevented a worse whipping for the men in red. As long as this Barcelona remains, Ferguson will have a hard time finding European glory, especially with this midfield that is barely good enough in England, let alone against the prowess of a team like Barcelona.

It's back to the drawing board for Ferguson, and we can only hope with a substantial, rumoured warchest, we'd be able to bring in some real midfielders.