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Champions League: Manchester United v Barcelona

Ozren Podnar

Barcelona's triple crown

Three most important trophies in the same season? A feasible, but very rare feat. Especially if we talk of the major leagues. But, Barcelona did just that in 2008/09.

Today it seems unthinkable that the past season in the Champions League could have finished other than with a Barcelona win. However, before the final match in Rome there were plenty of signals that the Stadio Olimpico would witness a Manchester United triumph.

Manchester United or Alex Ferguson had never been beaten in European finals, United had been superior to Barcelona in head-to-head clashes and had won all their modern European competitions after eliminating Barca.

Another factor in the Red Devils' favour were the injuries or suspensions to several key Barcelona's defenders, Rafael Marquez, Gabriel Milito, Daniel Alves and Eric Abidal.

Many punters wondered how the young Gerard Pique and the part-time defender Yaya Toure would handle Ronaldo, Rooney, Tevez or Berbatov.

One hundred and five minutes after the Swiss referee Busacca's initial whistle, all the forecasts were off. Barcelona outplayed the Red Devils wiping them out by a neat 2-0 with brilliant goals from Samuel Eto'o and Lionel Messi, the shortest guy on the pitch scoring with a looping header.

In 54 years of European cups only two clubs from the five major soccer nations have won the triple crown consisting of the domestic league and cup and the Champions League or Cup, as it used to be called until 1992. These two clubs are Manchester United and Barcelona.

Manchester United were the first to achieve that fantastic feat in 1999 when they edged Arsenal by on point in the Premiership, beat Newcastle 2-0 in the FA Cup final and then Bayern 2-1 in added time in the Champions League final at Nou Camp.

Chelsea not forgetting Ovrebo

Barcelona repeated all this but a bit more emphatically. In the Primera division Josep Guardiola's orchestra left Real Madrid nine points behind, in the King's Cup they demolished Athletic Bilbao 4-1, and overwhelmed United in the world's premier club competition 2-0.

In our opinion, that is the biggest achievement of any European club in history, and we have not even mentioned the glamourous displays Barcelona offered throughout the season.

Stamford Bridge remains as the only blotch on Barca's magnificent season, and Chelsea fans will always be entitled to believe they would have ended up European champions. The Norwegian referee Tom Henning Ovrebo overlooked from a minimum of three to as many as six penalties in favour of the Blues, inflicting arguably the biggest damage on a single club in a single game on record.

An unlucky Chelsea yet again remained within inches of the ultimate glory, after going down to a non-existent Luis Garcia goal against Liverpool in 2005 and losing on penalties both in the 2007 semifinals and last year's final against United. Maybe they will live to see Lady Luck smiling upon them, some other time.

Quarterfinals 1st 2nd

Barcelona - Bayern 4-0 1-1
Liverpool - Chelsea 1-3 4-4
Villarreal - Arsenal 1-1 0-3
Manchester United - Porto 2-2 1-0

Semifinals 1st 2nd

Barcelona - Chelsea 0-0 1-1
Manchester Utd - Arsenal 1-0 3-1

Final

Barcelona - Manchester Utd 2-0
Rome, 27th May. Stadio Olimpico. Attendance 67,000.
Referee: Massimo Busacca (Switzerland)
Scorers: 1-0 Eto'o (10'), 2-0 Messi (70')
Yellow cards: Pique, Ronaldo, Scholes and Vidic.

Barcelona: Valdes; Puyol, Toure, Pique, Silvinho; Busquets, Xavi, Iniesta (90' Rodriguez); Messi, Eto'o, Henry (71' Keita)
Coach: Josep Guardiola

Manchester United: Van der Sar; O'Shea, Ferdinand, Vidic, Evra; Anderson (45' Tevez), Park (66' Berbatov), Carrick, Giggs (75' Scholes); Ronaldo, Rooney
Coach: Alex Ferguson

Ozren Podnar

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