Ship Building

The Sun continues it's stint of rubbish reporting today, this time in connection with Tevez:

CARLOS TEVEZ will be a sub for the Champions League final in Rome — signalling his exit from Manchester United.

He will be joined on the bench by Dimitar Berbatov for the game against Barcelona as Alex Ferguson sticks with the strikers who tore apart Arsenal in the semi-final.

Tevez will see it as the final insult, proving that he must leave to get regular first-team football.

The absolute stupidity can be seen by swapping the names of Berbatov and Tevez round in the article, because if it's an insult to Tevez, why isn't it to Berbatov (who lest we forget has a better goal scoring record than Tevez...)? The other stupidity is that the article is based on nothing but The Sun writer's guesswork as to our starting line-up. And this is flagged as their main story...
The Sun does redeem itself a little with this humorous piece comparing Tevez to a hamster and Dirk Kuyt (not sure which is worse):

CARLOS TEVEZ has been a busy man these last few weeks.

Waving to the fans, kissing the club badge and saying how much he wants to stay at Manchester United if only the “old man” would play him.

Oh yes, and picking up £90,000 a week in wages.

Well, if he really does want to play for United then I suggest he volunteer his services at Hull on Sunday. ...

But you have the feeling Tevez may believe he is above all this.

Like he is above being part of Alex Ferguson’s rotation policy — despite the fact that, as in the Treble year of 1999, it works so well.

As such, he is a little deluded about his value. He is not a Cristiano Ronaldo or Wayne Rooney.

Yes, his goal tally of 34 in 96 games stacks up well enough, though this season he has managed only five in the league.

And, yes, his workrate appeals hugely to the Old Trafford faithful.

But, basically, Tevez is a player who runs around a lot. So did Alan Smith. So does a hamster in a wheel.

Now he wants £110,000 a week and a place in the starting line-up, for which United are expected to pay a further £26million on top of the £6m his loan arrangement has already cost — plus £9mwages over the last two years.

No wonder United are hedging their bets, while Liverpool may be prepared to pick up the tab. Why? They already have their own version of Tevez in Dirk Kuyt.

On the good news front is this:

Interviewed yesterday by one of the same Spanish radio stations that he used to flirt brazenly with Real last summer, Ronaldo said: “At the moment I’m only thinking about the [Champions League] final, independently of what will happen to me or my team-mates next season.

“I’m sure [Florentino] Pérez [who is expected to be elected Real president next month] would create an incredible team at Madrid, but at the moment I’m at United and I don’t care about what happens there. I only care about what will happen next season at Manchester United.”

Which is all well and good, but it does still seem a little equivocal, with the "at the moment", repeated twice, certainly allowing for wriggling. It's certainly not good enough to stop a summer of rumour, but what would be...
Ronaldo has a few words to say on the final:

“It’s a battle of teams,” he said. “Without my team I won’t win and neither will Messi without his team-mates.

“The two teams are very good, they play very well and they have dream squads. It will be the match every fan dreamed about.”

"It's clear that we are the two best teams in Europe. Not only because we are in the final but also because of the football we have played this season and for the trophies we have won.

"It will be the match every fan dreamed about."

On The Telegraph website is someone predicting the team for the Champions League final, the predictable result -

Van der Sar; O'Shea, Ferdinand, Vidic, Evra; Anderson, Carrick, Giggs; Park, Ronaldo, Rooney.

News on a tribute to Sir Matt Busby at the Final:

the club have received permission from Uefa to create a huge mosaic in honour of their former manager at the end of the Stadio Olimpico that houses United's supporters.

The mosaic will spell "For Sir Matt" and will be made up of 16,000 red and white sheets, including a black and white portrait of the man who has been described by Ferguson as "the heartbeat of Manchester United". It will be unveiled shortly before kick-off and the organisers, the Stretford End Flags group, say they hope it will "inspire the team" and be "a tribute to the Godfather of football and the architect of the modern Manchester United". ...

"We wanted to do something to mark Sir Matt's 100th birthday and we were approached by the fans with an idea that would recognise the role he had played in the club's unique place in Europe," the United chief executive, David Gill, said . "Alex liked the idea straight away. The mosaic will remind millions of people around the world what a great man Sir Matt was."

Evra has some words on the Final and Messi:

“I don't have a problem sleeping before these games - you'd have to ask him if he does,” Evra said, a smile flashing across his face

“Last year was last year and this is totally different, but I was very proud of myself after the semi-final against Barcelona because I'd done my job very well,” he said. “I won't forget that, but this is a new year and I must make sure I do my job just as well again.”

“The thing against Messi is you can stop him ten times, but if he passes you once and scores, people will say, 'Evra played a poor game,'” Evra said. “That's why you have to be focused for the whole game against him.”

On his form:

"I had one bad game in the Carling Cup Final and people said I wasn’t the same player as last year,” said Evra.

“I’ve played for Manchester United for three years and had one bad game, so I was actually happy with the criticism because it made me believe I’m the best left-back in the world.

“When you’ve had one bad game and people are criticising you, it makes you proud. I said after that, ‘okay, we will see’.

“It wasn’t a good day in the final. It was very warm at Wembley and the pitch was difficult but I don’t want to make excuses.

“I just played one bad game, that’s all. But after that I think I showed people who criticised me my real form again, and you can see that now. I think the criticism helps you become stronger."

And on the fall out from "The Battle of The Bridge":

"If you asked me about the ban for the next 10 years, I would still say I don't accept it because I lost 10 games. I didn't touch anyone, but got a four-game ban. It still hurts me when I talk about it now. I was relaxed after meeting the FA and when the boss told me, 'Pat, it's four games,' I couldn't believe it. "It cost me 10 games because I was banned for a month, came back and set up the second goal against Chelsea, and then got injured. Two months out was very, very difficult. For me it was an injustice. It's finished now, but it is still in my heart and I still have pain about it. It killed me.

There's a long interview with Sir Alex on his Glasgow roots in The Times, which I'm not going to quote from, the whole thing probably deserves a read (though The Times' annoying thing of spreading a story acroos numerous pages does its best to prevent that).
There's an in depth look at Park in The Telegraph, which is again worth a read:

Every step of the way, Park has been beset by obstacles which would have crushed lesser men. This is the boy considered too physically feeble to make it as a pro but who is now regarded in awe as "Three Lung Park", a tireless study in perpetual motion.

He is the teenager rejected by college team after college team who went on to become his country's best player yet, the hero every Korean male wants to be and the one every Korean woman wants to be with (and that's despite his own happy observation that he is "not as handsome as David Beckham").

He is the bloke who got booed by his own PSV Eindhoven fans when he first came to Europe but who now has his own hymn of praise at Old Trafford (er, the one which features dogs and Scousers).

Best of all, he is the fighter whose response to being dropped from last year's Champions League final – even grizzled old Sir Alex Ferguson admitted that the decision nearly broke his heart – was not to sulk in self-pity but uncomplainingly to give everything this term so Ferguson had no choice but to reveal him as the first on the Rome team sheet.