For the 1st time in history, 2 English sides would be competing for the right to be called European Club cup champions and the rest of the world waits with baited breath, as if!
Manchester United will tonight lock horns with Chelsea in Moscow and already the excuses for what promises to be a boring game, having been coming through with the state of the pitch being blamed.
Last season at Wembley, these t teams played out a very nervy incredibly boring 1-0 scoreline to victory and it would surprise very few people if the quality of the game is just as bad.
The reason being that the stakes are very high for both sides as Chelsea are looking to end their season with winning some silverware that they have failed to do all season and United are looking to win the champions league for only the 3rd time in their history.
Sir Alex Ferguson is trying to cement his status as 1 of the if not the greatest ever British manager and can only do so by winning multiple European cups with United.
Things that are to be expected for the game is that Didier Drogba, if fit is likely to score as he has scored in every major final he has played for Chelsea and that Cristiano Ronaldo is likely to have a quiet game as he usually does in big matches.
It would be interesting to see just how fit John Terry is as he likes to see himself as the bionic man and this game might just have come too soon for someone that dislocated his elbow just around 10 days ago.
Chelsea in truth are the more in form team at this point in time as United’s players seem a bit tired after a long season. Players like Michael Ballack, Floren Malouda, Frank Lampard and Michael Essien look a lot fresher as apart from Essien, the others have not played a full season of games.
There are question marks at the back though as Ricardo Carvalho, the aforementioned Terry as well as Ashley Cole, who hurt his ankle in training with Claude Makele all, seem to be carrying injuries with the seriousness of them being uncertain at this point in time.
Also in attack Didier Drogba might not be 100% fit and without him being fully fit, I would not give Chelsea a prayer to win the game.
United are not the full flowing attacking side some people seem to always suggest about them as they only do that or can do that against the lesser sides, not sides that have players that are capable of controlling the tempo of the game as Chelsea undoubtedly have.
They would possibly try to play on the counter and hope that Ronaldo has an excellent game as he is the key to the whole match. If he is quiet then it would be a boring game, if not then there might be fireworks.
There are question marks on the level of fitness of Wayne Rooney and also what role he and Carlos Tevez would play if they both start in this match.
Paul Scholes seems very likely to start and Michael Carrick is also a likely starter with Park Ji-Sung, Anderson or Owen Hargreaves occupying the last spot in midfield.
Personally I would start with Scholes, Hargreaves and Anderson for the latter 2 provide energy that Carrick does not possess while Scholes can always pick a pass even if I think he is past it.
For Chelsea, Joe Cole needs to rediscover his early season form as he has been terrible of late and Salomon Kalou needs to be more consistent in his final ball distribution.
The 2 sides are evenly matched in my view and much would depend on what strategy both managers utilise and substitutions. If Jose Mourinho was the manager of this Chelsea, I would have made them marginal favourites but with Avram Grant, you just do not know.
You would always get from him, sly self-praise. I have never come across a manager that likes to portray himself as humble and then in the next sentence heap praise upon himself like Grant does. He would always come up with that “we have tried to play better football that we used to do” and all that nonsense implying that he somehow saved Chelsea from oblivion.
Even with their injuries they still have a team of players better than 98% in the premiership so I do not understand all the praise he gets for the so called “steadying the ship”.
The 1 thing Chelsea did not do under Mourinho was to get prima donnas, most of the players he brought are hardened professionals that would do their jobs no matter if they are happy or not. It would have been more praiseworthy if he managed to do the same at Barcelona for instance.
The game though needs United to score first and in all honesty they deserve to win it more not for their brand of football, which has not been great in champions league but because they have had a tougher route to the final and did not lose a single game in doing so.
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