Page 124 - Alex Ferguson: My Autobiography

nineteen

BARCELONA were the best team ever to line up against my Manchester United sides. Easily the best. They
brought the right mentality to the contest. We had midfield players in our country – Patrick Vieira,
Roy Keane, Bryan Robson – who were strong men, warriors; winners. At Barcelona they had these
wonderful mites, 5 feet 6 inches tall, with the courage of lions, to take the ball all the time and never
allow themselves to be bullied. The accomplishments of Lionel Messi, Xavi and Andrés Iniesta were

amazing to me.
The Barcelona side that beat us at Wembley in the 2011 Champions League final were superior to
the team that conquered us in Rome two years earlier. The 2011 bunch were at the height of their
powers and brought tremendous maturity to the job. In both instances I had to wrestle with the
knowledge that we were a really good team but had encountered one that had handled those two finals
better than us.
I wish we could have played the Rome final again the next day. The very next day. There was a

wonderful atmosphere in Rome’s Stadio Olimpico, on a beautiful night, and it was my first defeat in a
European final, in five outings. To collect a runners-up medal is a painful act when you know you
could have performed much better.
Bravery was a prerequisite for confronting those Barcelona sides. They were the team of their
generation, just as Real Madrid were the team of theirs in the 1950s and 1960s, and AC Milan were
in the early 1990s. The group of world-beaters who formed around Messi were formidable. I felt no

envy towards these great sides. Regrets, yes, when we lost to them, but jealousy, no.
In each of those two European Cup finals, we might have been closer to Spain’s finest by playing
more defensively, but by then I had reached the stage with Manchester United where it was no good
us trying to win that way. I used those tactics to beat Barcelona in the 2008 semi-final: defended
really deep; put myself through torture, put the fans through hell. I wanted a more positive outlook
against them subsequently, and we were beaten partly because of that change in emphasis. If we had
retreated to our box and kept the defending tight, we might have achieved the results we craved. I’m

not blaming myself; I just wish our positive approach could have produced better outcomes.
Beating us in Rome accelerated Barcelona’s development into the dominant team of their era. It
drove them on. A single victory can have that catalytic effect. It was their second Champions League
win in four seasons and Pep Guardiola’s team were the first Spanish side to win the League, Copa del
Rey and Champions League in the same campaign. We were the reigning European champions but
were unable to become the first in the history of the modern competition to defend that title.

Yet we shouldn’t have lost that game in the Eternal City. There was a way to play against