Barcelona 0-0 ManUtd: Villains and Heroes

Paul James

Sometimes the fates conspire against you. I had already ducked out of work next week because of Tuesday’s home leg and could not really do the same for the away leg. So instead of soaking up the atmosphere in the Catalan capital I find myself at a Management Centre in Hampshire.

I organise my day around being free at 7.45, and leave the others at dinner. I’ve got the team selection on text, and it’s worrying; Vidic out with a stomach upset, Ji Sung Park in, Scholes and Carrick but no Anderson. I rate Hargreaves as a stand-in right back, and the rest look good until I realise he has moved them all round; Tevez in support, Ronny as striker, Rooney on the wing.

The TV is not on. Is nobody watching the football? “Sky is down. Don’t worry, sir, we can rig up the television in the Arden Suite.” I go there. The place takes ten minutes to find and is deserted. I’m becoming Mr Nasty; I don’t need Sky next week, sunshine, I need it now. I run down to the pub. Nice bar, nice beer. Big telly, no Sky.

Why do they run conferences in the middle of fucking Hampshire? I run back (it’s only a quarter of a mile) and am reduced to sitting in my car listening to Alan Green and Chris Waddle on Five Live over eighty minutes of torture.

From them I get the impression we are utterly awful, that it is a miserable display, that our season is falling apart. I catch the BBC News, which headlines that United are hammered by Barcelona and shows me the missed penalty and a pretty good shot from Thierry Henry which moves all over the place and Van der Sar just manages to knock down.

I go to bed a worried and disappointed man pondering on that glorious 3-3 when Andy Cole and Dwight Yorke played like Puskas and Di Stefano, and on the contrast between this year’s dross and last year’s first leg; the beautiful game at its peak.
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