Breathe and Stop… Manchester United: ‘An Italian Team from Another Era’

Post-African Cup of Nations 2010 coverage we are working on a couple of things behind the scenes on Just Football, hence the brief dip in posting regularity over the past week or so. While we experience this break from our regular scheduled programming here are a couple of links to articles I’ve found interesting lately:

Where else to start but Manchester United’s impressive 3-2 win over AC Milan at the San Siro, which hands them a desirable advantage heading into the 2nd leg of their Champions League round of 16 knockout clash. United have become a truly masterful European outfit over the last three seasons, winning the tournament once and reaching two finals, and on the evidence of Tuesday’s game they look capable of making it all the way to Madrid for round three.

Richard Williams at The Guardian praises the Red Devils for the way they “so thunderously completed the first part of their assault on history,” and mentions a fact which appears to have been hugely underplayed by the English media – that the result was United’s first ever win against Milan at the San Siro and indeed the first time they have ever even scored a goal away at the home of the Italian giants.

“Among those unable to make their mark at San Siro were such prolific strikers as George Best, Denis Law, Bobby Charlton, Dennis ­Viollet, Cristiano Ronaldo and Ryan Giggs. Not one of them had been able to find a way past defenders bearing the names Schnellinger, Nesta and Maldini, and such goalkeepers as Lorenzo Buffon, Fabio Cudicini and – until last night – Nelson Dida,”

writes Williams, a point that illustrates well the size of United’s achievement on Tuesday. Away from home in Europe over the last 3 years, Sir Alex Ferguson’s team has learned how to out-Italy even the greatest of Italian sides, to the point where even La Gazzetta dello Sport praised them as being “like an Italian team from another era.”

This United team contain, soak up pressure and strike with venom like no other – a far cry from the swashbuckling but tactically more naive Manchester United teams of the mid to late 1990s. Again on Tuesday it reaped rewards as a Milan side inspired by Ronaldinho dominated the opening exchanges yet still fell foul to the sucker punches – delivered luckily by Paul Scholes and then ruthlessly by the head of Wayne Rooney.

As for Rooney, the man is in electric form at the minute. If this were NBA Jam he’d definitely be holding the luminous orange basketball and the announcer would definitely be shouting ‘he’s on fire!’

Milan now have it all to do in the second leg, while all those who said United wouldn’t be able to cope without Ronaldo and Tevez need to swallow down their meaty slices of humble pie.

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Speaking of pies, it was leaked earlier this week that the Premier League plans to offer clubs below the now customarily titled ‘big four’ cartel a bigger chance to get their slice of the Champions League pie with the idea of an end of season playoff to determine the final Champions League place in England.

This would potentially involve the clubs finishing 4th, 5th, 6th and 7th in the Premier League going into a playoff to determine who takes home that lucrative fourth Champions League spot. The objectives of such a change, presumably, are to stimulate competition and increase entertainment value, making it fairer for all involved.

Ian at twohundredpercent however sees it from a more sinister angle, claiming the idea, “has nothing to do with evening things out or redistribution of money. It’s about the Premier League snatching the end of the season away from everybody else.” In a highly perceptive piece Ian spots a lot of angles that others including myself hadn’t considered and argues that if the Premier League “really, seriously cared about redistribution, they would address the imbalance of prize money within the competition.”

While I don’t necessarily agree with all the points he raises (I think the idea of a Champions League playoff represents an honest step in the right direction from the Premier League and, at the very least, is well worth discussing) Ian’s arguments are certainly compelling.

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Meanwhile, Andrew Guest has an excellent piece up on Pitch Invasion discussing Questions and Representations in the Year of African Soccer, Nick Smith offers a wonderful article on Shakhtar Donetsk over at Soccerlens and European Football Weekends interviews Barry Glendenning of The
Guardian fame.

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Apart from all that, our poll on 5-a-side vs 11-a-side football is still open – which do you prefer and why? Cast your vote and let us know which you prefer playing. Currently, 58% of readers (including myself) prefer 5-a-side.

Right, that’s enough reading to keep you occupied for a bit – I’m off to continue plotting world football domination…back soon!

AC Milan, Champions League, Manchester United, Wayne Rooney