NYT: Mesmerizing Barcelona Beat Manchester United With Style in Champions League Final

[steven johnson]

Manchester United's weakened defense did them in.

By JERÉ LONGMAN
Published: May 28, 2009

ROME - 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.

http://mobile.nytimes.com/2009/05/28/sports/soccer/28soccer.xml

[Upton]

1. Weakened defense?

Well what happened to their offense? The questionable back four was supposed to belong to Barca but after the first 10 minutes MU created very few chances.

In fact, if not for John Terry's historic choke job MU wouldn't have won it last year.

I believe the EPL is the best league in the world and I'm no fan of Barcelona but I have to admit I got a great deal of enjoyment out of watching MU get dominated that way.