Barcelona 0-0 Man United: United Outplayed But Still Alive

For 90 minutes, it was a game of men against boys as Barcelona completely played Manchester United off the park. Despite this, the blaugrana crucially failed to score which now puts Man United in the driving seat to win the game at Old Trafford to play in the Champions League Final.

Yesterday’s Chelsea against Liverpool match was a dire affair. Not that we expected anything different, but the level of skill displayed during the match was abysmal. Both goals were comedy errors (Dirk Kuyt’s shot was perfect but the mistakes from both sides leading up to that goal were embarrassing).

There was more entertainment in the first 20 minutes of the Barcelona against Manchester United match than the entire 90 minutes of the game at Anfield. Barcelona absolutely tore Man United apart, controlling the tempo of the game, creating tons more chances and keeping Man United on the backfoot for almost the whole game.

Time after time, Man United scrambled the ball away to safety. Rooney practically played as a right back. Tevez spent most of the match tackling. This was all part of Sir Alex Ferguson’s gameplan to contain Barcelona by playing a 4-3-2-1 formation with Ronaldo the sole striker up front. It wasn’t pretty but it was effective.