Flashback Memories

Let's relive how we got the Champions League final through all the rubbish (and some good stuff) the papers have written about us throughout the year.
Our first game was home to Villerreal and ended 0-0, leading to these wise words:

It was quite a party in Moscow 119 days ago and the suspicion lingers that Manchester United are still struggling to get over the hangover.

The previous five teams to defend the Champions League trophy have not fared well in the attempt and last night Manchester United discovered why. The monumental effort of winning the thing, coupled with defending it and maintaining an assault on the domestic title, is gruelling beyond belief, even for a collective of the world’s finest players.

Jumping ahead (out of necessity, I seem to have managed to miss posting on every other group game...) this is what Martin Samuel had to say on January 15:

For if Manchester United are heading for the scrap of their lives on the home front, overtaking Liverpool and winning two cups, then adding a consecutive European triumph to it could prove mission impossible.
Indeed, a betting man with any respect for the formbook would attempt to buck the recession by placing a large wager on Inter Milan, champions of Italy, to dispatch United in the first knockout round next month. ...
records are records for a reason, and the fact is since the European Cup changed to its Champions League format, no winner has retained the title.
Less widely realised, however, is the exhausting impact an appearance in a Champions League final has on the subsequent form of the winning club.

(on a side note, while looking through posts I came across this quote from Tevez:

Tevez said.”It would be very difficult to have to leave one of the biggest clubs in the world. I spoke with the [chief executive] of the club [David Gill], but nothing is signed yet. We are now waiting until June and we will see what happens.”

So much for his recent claims that no one at the club has ever spoke to him about staying...)
Let's remind ourselves of Mourhino before the first leg against Inter:

“It doesn’t matter how many of my team can get into theirs, because my team is more than the sum of the parts,” he said. “Players don’t play individually, and United is not better than us.”

And how he changes his tune before the second leg:

"In attack they have a group of incredible strikers. He can choose the combinations he wants. If he prefers a targetman he goes for Dimitar Berbatov. If he prefers speed and movement he goes for Carlos Tevez. He has this ammunition in his hands and he is clever in the way he does it.
“We will be trying to do it against what I have to say is a very good team,” he said. “We know what we have to do. We know our qualities and how we can create problems for them. They know it is going to be difficult for them.”

Here's the ever rubbish James Lawton after the Inter game:

In Milan Manchester United oozed the quality of masters of Europe. Here they looked nothing like that. Indeed, at times it seemed they could do with a few lessons in conviction from, yes, Liverpool.

Martin Samuel, perhaps mindful of what he'd said previously, said we'd overcome the main hurdle:

This victory may not win the prize for the performance of the week by an English club in Europe, but do not underestimate it. There were flaws, yes, and a 20-minute period when the champions of Europe were far from comfortable but Inter Milan are the finest team in Italy, and this is a notoriously difficult time in the season for European Cup holders.

The last 16 has been the graveyard of champions for those lifting the European crown in the previous four seasons and, having run through it without fear, Ferguson's players can now let their imaginations go wild.

And Sir Alex had something funny to say:

'I didn't know if I was watching a game of football or suicide!"

And onto Porto, where everything seemed to be going wrong after the first leg, leading Vidic to talk of tiredness:

"I don't think it's a problem with confidence," said Vidic. "We have had many games this year – Wednesday then Saturday then Wednesday, that type of thing – and we've had a lot of players injured, and then players coming back from injury. It's difficult. We definitely need Rio back. Rio and all the injured players – Anderson, [Dimitar] Berbatov and all the rest.

"We need fresh bodies because a lot of the players are playing so much at the moment. We've had players away on international duty last week, then playing ­Sunday and Tuesday so it's hard." ...

"We've definitely had a bad period, we haven't done well and we've conceded too many goals. I don't think we're short of confidence. We've scored goals, made chances but we are having a bad time."
"After we lost 4-1 to Liverpool, that first bad game, we needed to fix it. But we didn't," said Vidic. "To be honest, maybe we have been guilty of easing off. Against Liverpool, maybe you could say we took it easier than we normally would have done because we had a game in hand and there was a big gap in points. We didn't think we were too relaxed at the time but maybe we were."

And Sir Alex to say things about Ronaldo which could have been taken as criticism:

"I don’t accept that [giving the ball away] from anyone.

"I speak to Cristiano about it. He’s not immune from that."

"He always feels he’s not getting the proper protection from referees and I think that in a few cases it is right," said the United boss.

"But there are also a lot cases where it’s not right.

"It’s hard when a player who wants to entertain all the time doesn’t get everything his own way.

"But you can’t get everything your own way – that’s just the way football is."

And the most ridiculous words ever to be appear in The Mail on Sunday:

With Ronaldo relegated to the bench yesterday, it is unclear whether he will play a part in Wednesday’s second leg in Porto.

And onto that Porto game, he scored a not bad goal remember:

Some words used to describe Ronaldo's strike which set us on the road to the Champions League Semi-Final, "exquisite improbability," "truly preposterous," "sublime," "an absolute peach, a stupendous strike," "one of the grandest goals in the annals of the Champions League," "a bolt of fork lightning."

And I'll quote this, lest we forget how good Berbatov can be:

The key figure was Berbatov, who had perhaps the best game of his fledgling Old Trafford career. As well as adding an obvious class to the build-up, he added a certainty and, crucially, a calmness that United have missed in recent weeks. Berbatov's heart would not skip a beat if you dropped a marmot in the bath, so a European Cup quarter-final was never going to faze him.

Then we utterly dominated Arsenal in the semi-final first leg:

Manchester United overwhelmed ­Arsenal, yet neglected to leave the full evidence in the result. That could be termed ­carelessness, but it is the habit of this side, with its emphasis on control, to show circumspection. In consequence the visitors will have left Old Trafford in good heart, but that is simply because they avoided devastation in the first leg

It was all about experience against innocence, achievement against potential, serial trophy accumulators against a work in progress. They had a point. After all, of the total of 13 major medals won by members of this Arsenal starting 11, eight had been earned by Mikael Silvestre. And he had won them all in his time at United.

Before destroying them in the second, with Evra giving the best verdict:

Evra delivered a damning assessment of Arsène Wenger’s team. “It was 11 men against 11 boys,” the defender said. “They’re just too young to compete. Chelsea and Barcelona are on another level compared to Arsenal. The difference wasn’t just experience, it was quality, too. It’s not just about playing pretty. We’re pretty too, but we also score goals and we also defend well.”

Although the manner of our victory did lead several journalists to wax lyrical, Henry Winter:

In reaching the Champions League final in the Eternal City, the European champions did to Arsenal what Manny Pacquaio had done to Ricky Hatton, devastating combinations smashing through naïve defending, bringing an early knock-down. Arsenal were out cold, out of the competition that so obsesses Arsene Wenger.

This was not men against boys, this was skilled professors against callow pupils, a mismatch that the referee, the appalling Roberto Rosetti, must have been tempted to step in to spare Wenger’s young charges further punishment. Arsenal’s suffering was that bad. United were that good.

Oliver Holt:

It was the night they shot Bambi down.

Arsene Wenger's wide-eyed young team, full of hope and potential, never even saw it coming. But their demise at the hands of Manchester United was fast and, oh, was it brutal.

Skipping around on skittish legs, Arsenal were defenceless and naive prey hunted down by big beasts.

United were so merciless with them that it was the kind of stuff that made you want to hide behind your hands.

It wasn't just a beating. It was a humiliation. The heaviest defeat Arsenal have suffered here on the biggest night in the Emirates' short history. And it may also have marked the death of a dream.

And so here we are, in the Final.