Barca were awesome, and when they are not doing their diving/cheating thing they are a joy to behold.
United were thoroughly outclassed although Rooney's goal was good.
Barca have thrown down the gauntlet and I can't see anybody challenging their dominance in the near future.
That said, I can't understand the anti-United vitriol.
They regularly fill their ground with 76,000; do we really expect them to all come from Salford?
Put it another way; would anybody object to having addicks spread far and wide or indeed should we be encouraging some of our Kent fans to support their "local" team, Gillingham?
Hypothetically, would anybody choose to support Barca over Charlton if we had no English in our team?
I have to confess to a soft spot for United since the days of Charlton Law and Best; even venturing once to stand in the Stretford End as a starstruck 14 year old
One good thing to come out of last night's masterclass from Barca is that it should stop the idiot Sky commentators proclaiming that the Premiership is the best league in the world, with the best players - proved to be absolute tosh last night.
One good thing to come out of last night's masterclass from Barca is that it should stop the idiot Sky commentators proclaiming that the Premiership is the best league in the world, with the best players - proved to be absolute tosh last night.
No it won't because Sky make far more money from the EPL than they do La Ligue.
Don't think it has anything to do with England Floyd, utd did get to the final yet again, but were just outclassed by the best team in the world. Agree we could learn alot from there set up etc but I don't think we are ever going to encourage technically gifted players as much as Spain etc, as we don't have that style.
Have to disagree here, anyone please correct me if I'm wrong but Utd had 1 home grown player (Giggs), by my count Barca had 5 (Busquets, Xavi, Iniesta, Pedro and Messi [I know they bought Messi young but he has been there since about 13?]). And when you look at the Spain U21 squad, quite a few Barca players and the rest of the Spanish young international sides you have to start questioning what they are doing to have all these exceptional youngsters coming through.
As I've said before I think over time our country will develop technically better players, at youth level it has been identified that smaller pitches, different styles of player etc. are needed to what we have at the moment. And we have a lot more people now playing shorter versions of the game i.e. 5 a side, which encourage the passing game. Right now we are nowhere near the level some of the Spanish sides are but I do believe in time we will get there.
That is absoultely spot on save the fact that our academies still have a tendancy to prefer the more athletic and earlier developed kid against the more diminutive one who has a better touch and sees a pass. The Hungarians showed us how to play football over 50 years ago but until we learn that the love of the ball is more important than the ability to close down and tackle we will never be able to compete on a technical level with the best.
I thought that it was Man United's inability to effectively close down and tackle (one of Barcelona's strengths) that lost them the game.
To be fair Man Utd did ok with their youth team in the 90s. Also I thought Scholes played a bit on Saturday, which is two.
I think what makes the difference with youth sides is random luck as to how many you have at a time. The Messi example is merely confirmation that the top sides scout the best players from all over the world. I don't know where Busquets, Xavi, Pedro and Iniesta grew up, but it's no different from Beckham and Giggs being in the Man Utd youth side, neither of them grew up in Manchester, they were just recruited as Man Utd have a 'blow the bidget' scouting network.
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Barca are the best team in the world and that's a FACT
To be fair Man Utd did ok with their youth team in the 90s. Also I thought Scholes played a bit on Saturday, which is two.
I think what makes the difference with youth sides is random luck as to how many you have at a time. The Messi example is merely confirmation that the top sides scout the best players from all over the world. I don't know where Busquets, Xavi, Pedro and Iniesta grew up, but it's no different from Beckham and Giggs being in the Man Utd youth side, neither of them grew up in Manchester, they were just recruited as Man Utd have a 'blow the bidget' scouting network.