Patience, flair and a brilliant game of keep-away prevailed over force Wednesday night when Barcelona dominated Manchester United, 2-0, to win the European Champions League title, Europe’s most prestigious club soccer tournament.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.” Pep Guardiola dedicated Barcelona's 2-0 victory over Manchester United in the final of the Champions League Wednesday to Italian football legend Paolo Maldini.
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.”
