Partisanship aside, Manchester United vs. FC Barcelona is the dream Champions League final. The two best teams in the world, both winners of their domestic championships (Europe’s strongest), and each with their fair share of the world’s best players. In theory it should be the perfect match.
Media attention has focused on the two players widely acknowledged to be the best in the world. On the one hand there is the preened show-pony that is Cristiano Ronaldo - all pomp, ceremony and arrogance in his coiffured brilliance. On the other there is Lionel Messi, more mulish Shetland than stallion. With dank mane and blank gaze he offers an altogether more understated incarnation of footballing genius.
Elsewhere, the pitch is littered with world-class talent. Barca’s attacking quintet are the most devastating force in the contemporary game. Andres Iniesta, Xaxi, Theirry Henry and Samuel Eto’o join Messi to form an alliance that has notched up more than 150 goals this season.
Manchester United’s star roll-call points to an more balanced line-up, with defenders Rio Ferdinand, Nemanja Vidic and Patrice Evra joining Wayne Rooney, Carlos Tevez and the legend that is Ryan Giggs as the main attractions.
The tie also pits the wits of two managers at either ends of their careers, but who are both currently presiding over something special in their own right. Sir Alex Ferguson, one of the game’s greatest and most enduring managers, against the 38-year-old Josep Guardiola, who during his first season at the Nou Camp has made an indelible mark.
Ferguson need do no more to secure his status as quite possibly the greatest manager of all time. In 25 years he has transformed Manchester United from a big club that had gone 17 years without winning a league title into the richest and most successful on the planet.
Guardiola may have been born with a silver Catalan spoon in his mouth, but what he has achieved so far points to a revolutionary style of football. Not since Johan Cruyff’s incarnation of Total Football at Barca 15 years ago have a side played with such attacking coherence.
For the Catalans, attack is most definitely the best form of defense. Their incredible ability going forward belies the weak underbelly of a poor defense. Manchester United know this and it will be in their interest to get forward as often as possible, if only to alleviate the pressure. Although United have the capacity to withstand Barca’s advances to a certain extent, it would be foolish to think that they won’t score.
Theory, of course, rarely translates into practice. There is every chance that the match will be such a turgid spectacle of which we will be unable to conceive how the sum was possibly the result of its parts.
Cup finals are a funny breed. You only have to look at what is widely considered to be the best Champions League final ever - Liverpool’s monumental comeback against Milan four years ago – to see that. On paper, names such as Armand Trarore, Vladimir Smicer, Harry Kewell and Djibril Cisse belie the fortitude they showed in the face of huge adversity.
In homage to that night in Istanbul, at odds of 70-1 I’m plumping for Manchester United 3-3 Barcelona.