Champions League - Manchester United to beat Barcelona!

Manchester United has the great chance to dispose Barcelona in the Champions League final at London's Wembley stadium tomorrow 2.45 am Malaysian time if the Man U players employ the following strategies;

1. Prevent Barca players the luxury of passing game. This means the Man U players must employ close and tight man-to-man marking whenever the Barca players have the ball.

2. United players must cut out Barca from ball possession even from the back of their half. Get someone like Park Ji-Sung, O'shea, Flecher or anyone of the de Silva twins, who has proven strong and competent to able to mark tightly on the Barca playmaker Xavi. Similarly Man U must also prevent Barca midfielder Andes Iniesta the freedom of ball possession where most probably many will come from the passing game with Xavi and the other midfielder. The midfielders are the most lethal weapon for Barcelona and if this is successfully cut off bu Man U, then Messi, the little mouse might also be starved of ball feeding for him to shoot at Man U's goal. Whoever Sir Alex Ferguson lines up in his team, he must take into consideration of this aspect and I believe Ferguson, the great strategist knows about this.

3. By employing man-to-man marking, the Barca players will have limited freedom to push deeply into Man U's half, thus reduce Barca's chance to shoot at Man U's goal.

4. To win the game Man U must be able to create a lot of chances to bombard at Barca's goal. Firstly, Man U's players must have the total ball possession from the midfield and at every opportunity employs fast ball passing to Wayne Rooney and Javier Hernandez or perhaps Michael Owen who are capable of doing swift and fast counter attack to shoot at Barca's goal once they get hold to the ball.

5. Man U must also be regularly use the two wings, Valencia on the right, Nani or Ryan Giggs on the left to cross the ball high to Barca's goal mouth to create the opportunity for Man U's forwards and others to knock in the goals. Many of Man U's goals in the Premier League came by this tactic. Valencia, especially has the power and ability to out run and out smart his opponent when the opportunity arise. Giggs is good at dribbling the ball from the far left into the deep center of Barca's half and deliver the ball to the forwards to shoot at the goal. Barca's defenders, Puyol and Pique are said to be vulnerable at this department and they have the trouble to catch up with the fast and quick opponents when these situations arise.

6. Finally, from the experience of the last Champions League game between Man Utd and Barcelona where Man Utd was beaten 2-0, Barca players tend to cheat or used ungentlemanly methods to lure Man U players to react in such a way that allow the referee to punish Man U's players and to give unnecessary advantage to Barcelona to outwit Man Utd. Thus United players must always be diligent, patient and have lots of self control when dealing with Barca's players even tough they employ the tight and close man-to-man marking. This is to prevent the referee from flashing out any yellow card or red card which definitely would disrupt Man U's rhythm of play. The last time the sides met clearly showed this trend. Man U was controlling the game from the start till when Man U players were flashed with yellow cards and Vidic was punished with red card.

My desire is to see Manchester United to beat this so-called magnificent and great football team of Barcelona.

Come early morning of Sunday, 29 May 2011, the world will greet the new world champion, Manchester United.

This year Champion League final seems to be grander than the World Cup final between Spain and Holland in 2010. But alas, Paul the Octopus was not around to pick the winner.