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Sir Alex Ferguson insists a Champions League semi-final with AC Milan need hold no fears for Manchester United.
The six-time European champions are the only remaining barrier to an all-English final in Athens on May 23. United met Milan two years ago, when they were beaten 1-0 in both legs, with the Italians far more superior than the final outcome suggested.
However, while Carlo Ancelloti’s ageing team are not quite the force they were, Ferguson’s side have emerged as one of the most feared on the continent. Tuesday’s seven-goal rout of Roma has established the Red Devils as favourites to make the final.
And, after detecting some trepidation during those high-profile meetings a couple of years ago, Ferguson does not believe United need be worried now.
“I am sure it will be a fantastic game but one thing is for certain, we are not going to be afraid of it,” he said. “There were one or two moments in the last game two years ago when there was a little bit of nervousness and caution about us.
“There is no need for that. We are playing a great side with a lot of experience. But we have a lot of attributes too.”
Ferguson admires the longevity of evergreen defender Paolo Maldini - “how old is he, 91?” - and accepts Ancelloti’s coaching prowess will ensure Milan will be formidable foes.
But, with Cristiano Ronaldo continuing to produce outstanding form, and Wayne Rooney happily hitting the Champions League goal trail again, he is confident in the abilities of his own team, although he does accept there are key lessons to be learned from their last visit to Milan.
“The last time we played them, we missed six or seven chances,” he said. “We know that cannot happen again, so the experience of our last games against them is going to be a big help.”
Ferguson’s is also confident the tie will pass off without trouble. Given it will have only been a month since United fans were attacked inside and outside Rome’s Stadio Olimpico, another visit to Italy has been viewed in some quarters as something to be avoided.
However, Ferguson played down the violence which erupted before last week’s return leg at Old Trafford and feels there should be no problem. “In terms of our experiences in Milan, the last time there were no problems and hopefully it will be the same again,” he said. “I didn’t think there would be any problem before our game on Tuesday but there was a short spell of trouble.
“Unfortunately, it kept being repeated on TV so it made you think there was bedlam for an hour, which gave a bad impression.
“Overall, the police dealt with the situation absolutely brilliantly and hopefully the Milan police will have enough consideration to deal with anything that comes along over there.”
The Times : COMPARISONS are odious and, in football, supremely irrelevant.In 1998, in the birth of vain glory, Manchester United’s Danish goalkeeper Peter Schmeichel pronounced that his United team would have scored 10 goals against the one which, in 1968, became the first English club to win the European Cup.Who knows? Who cares? In those 30 intervening years, football in Britain had become far faster and more tactically sophisticated.But teams are of their time. So are players. Yet the longevity of the likes of Stanley Matthews, first capped for England in 1934 and still good enough, 22 years later, to turn the famed Brazilian left-back, Nilton Santos, inside out at Wembley, suggests the truly great footballer would adjust to his era.By any standards, however, United’s 7-1 win against Roma was a towering performance, arguably the best that even they have produced in the competition. That is no mean feat given that, back in 1956, under the defiant leadership of Matt Busby, they were determined enough to challenge the recalcitrant Football League and become England’s first team to compete for, and then in 1968 win, the trophy.It must be said that Sir Alex Ferguson got things triumphantly right last Tuesday. Above all in the bold use of Ryan Giggs and Wayne Rooney, Giggs functioning in central midfield, Rooney out on the left wing where in the past, with club and country, he has tended to look unhappy. And how encouraging it was to see an English midfielder in Michael Carrick, excel, with two goals, and a performance of all round virtuosity. Of Cristiano Ronaldo, what more can we say? A proper successor to the refulgent George Best, the complete winger.Perhaps one must go back as far as the spring of 1966 to find a comparable performance by United in Europe. That was when they went to Lisbon in the second round, second leg and annihilated, 5-1, a formidable Benfica team, Eusebio included, which had won their previous 18 European Cup ties at home. Best destroyed them in the first dozen minutes with two goals. Benfica never got off the canvas.
But perhaps the finest European Cup performance of all was given by Real Madrid when they thrashed Eintracht Frankfurt 7-3 in the final at Hampden Park in 1960; after which the 134,000 Scottish fans stayed to applaud them. This after Frankfurt had taken the lead after 20 minutes.
The illusion soon perished. The incomparable centre- forward Alfredo Di Stefano got to work in tandem with Hungary’s illustrious left-footer Ferenc Puskas and goal after goal ensued. Di Stefano grabbed a hat-trick while his teammate scored four.
Two years later, in the Amsterdam final, the two were in ebullient form in the first half when Puskas scored three. But this was the consecration of the young Eusebio, his right foot as fierce as Puskas’s left. The Benfica goals flew in like bullets. Eusebio got two of them and Benfica won 5-3 in a game of all-out attack, which, even then, seemed liked a glorious anachronism.
Parma sports director Gabriele Zamagna has revealed Manchester United have turned down a major offer for Giuseppe Rossi.Zamagna said: “On Giuseppe Rossi, I can say that before us Manchester United refused an important offer for his purchase. It means that they believe in us. He came to us in a clean loan, the relationship with Manchester United is excellent.”Rossi has scored four goals for us and gained 8 points. It will be worth talking to Manchester United about their plans for him next season.”
Sporting Life : Gary Neville’s comeback has been put on hold for another week.The Manchester United skipper has been missing since suffering an ankle injury in the Premiership win against Bolton last month.Neville had hoped to make his return in Tuesday’s Premiership encounter with Sheffield United at Old Trafford.However, Sir Alex Ferguson has confirmed Neville will not face the Blades as United look to stretch their lead over Chelsea to six points.Neville is also doubtful for Saturday’s televised encounter with Middlesbrough, although Ferguson is optimistic the long-serving England defender will be available for the first leg of United’s Champions League semi-final with AC Milan on April 31.”Gary has a slight chance for the Middlesbrough game but a good chance for the AC Milan game,” he said.
Sunday Mirror : RYAN GIGGS last night challenged Manchester United to emulate the Treble-winning side of 1999.Long-serving Giggs believes the current squad have the ability to win everything before them after they demolished Watford in the FA Cup semi-final at Villa Park yesterday.Giggs said: “With the momentum we are building this team are capable of winning the treble. We need to carry on winning and that will build the confidence even more.”The history books show they won it. This team has the ability but we still have to go out and win the trophies. It’s a hell of a month coming up. The games are coming thick and fast. But we can put the FA Cup to bed until the Final and concentrate on the Premiership and Champions League.”Wayne Rooney, who demolished the Hornets with two goals in either half, admitted he had taken a giant step towards erasing the bitter memories of the penalty shoot-out defeat to Arsenal in the Cup Final two years ago. And Rooney also revealed he’s about to fulfil a boyhood dream by playing at Wembley.”The defeat against Arsenal still haunts me,” he said. “It was hard to take. To dominate the game and lose was dreadful. It’s brilliant to think we are going to the new Wembley. I remember going to the old one as a young boy.”Like any other kid I dreamed of playing in an FA Cup Final at Wembley and now that dream is going to become reality for me. I’m feeling good, doing well and scoring a few goals which is pleasing.”
Rio Ferdinand, who was substituted after 40 minutes with a groin injury, said: “I don’t think I’ll be fit for Tuesday’s game against Sheffield United but hopefully I will be available next weekend.
“I came off as a precaution and won’t know until tomorrow how serious it is. But I’m confident it won’t be too bad.”
Times : ASKED on Friday what it had cost his club’s billionaire owner to keep Cristiano Ronaldo cavorting down Premiership wings for another five years, Sir Alex Ferguson steadfastly refused to discuss numbers. Scant surprise. There had been figures enough dancing around the head of a young man who had established himself as the most desirable transfer target of what is shaping up to be football’s grandest ever spend.Early last week Real Madrid officials had calmly allowed themselves to be linked with an €80m bid for Ronaldo. The previous month the player’s agent employed the pages of Portugal’s leading sports daily, A Bola, to inform United that the Spanish were offering his premier client €225,000 a week. From United came the message that Ronaldo could not expect to jump beyond Rio Ferdinand and Wayne Rooney’s £100,000 weekly wages and that remained the unofficial Old Trafford line on Friday. Back in Portugal, however, Jorge Mendes was claiming a final settlement of €40m net - equivalent to £105,000 a week, after tax. Given that the agreement is understood to have included back-dated pay and a signing-on fee, it is safe to assume that Mendes’s version is closer to the reality than United’s.Ronaldo’s timing has been typically precise - the market is smiling kindly on any premier performer negotiating a contract just now. The summit of the English game is awash with new money, bolstered by revised broadcasting contracts which guarantee every top-tier club additional revenues far in excess of the sums United will pay their best player. From the start of next season, Sky, Setanta, assorted foreign broadcasters and other electronic media will pay the Premier League £2.33 billion between them for three years of transmission rights. Domestic revenues are up 66%; those from overseas more than doubled.Additional money will be filtered through to clubs through a share of basic rights topped up by a merit payment based on final league position. Where Chelsea earned £30.4m for winning last season’s title, next season’s bottom team will gross a similar sum. The 2007-08 champions will bank a rights cheque of more than £50m. On average, clubs will have at least £15m more to spend. The majority of the fresh funds will be directed towards player recruitment, swelling transfer fees, salaries, or both. Recent takeovers have added varying degrees of liquidity to Portsmouth, West Ham United, Aston Villa and Liverpool, with the latter slated for a £40m summer transfer fund. Though not bought out yet, Newcastle United, Manchester City and Tottenham Hotspur are all on the market and ripe for similar reinvigoration.At Chelsea, vastly improved contracts have been agreed with Didier Drogba and Michael Ess-ien. The Africans’ “golden handcuff” deals partly reflect an external pressure on the new wave of Premiership spending. As United quickly realised when renegotiating with Ronaldo, Spain’s largest clubs have come into even more fresh finance than their Premiership competitors. Real Madrid had just sold exclusive rights to league matches for £730m over seven years; Barcelona’s had gone for £670m. In Italy, Juven-tus are preparing to bankroll their return to Serie A with €50m of reinforcements, while AC Milan plan to extract Ronald-inho from Barcelona to restore themselves to title contention. Even in France wages have risen, courtesy of a £1.26 billion Canal Plus contract.As more cash pursues the same restricted pool of talent across Europe, agents have increased clients’ bargaining power by threatening to exploit a previously ignored section of international transfer rules. Section IV of Fifa’s Regulations for the Status and Transfer of Players details the circumstances in which footballers may terminate their contracts “without just cause”. Players under 28 can do so a minimum of three seasons after their current contract came into effect. Over 28, they need wait just two full seasons.More astute clubs have begun to factor the regulations into their thinking, renegotiating key personnel at an earlier date and targeting players eligible for a buy out. Already this year the representatives of Frank Lampard, John Terry, Xabi Alonso and Gilberto Silva have issued threats of early termination. As the grand Premiership spend begins, all expect to join Ronaldo in a share of the wealth.
Daily Mail: Cristiano Ronaldo last night warned the rest of Europe that he is only going to get better after signing a new five-year contract with Manchester United worth a staggering £6.2million a year.The 22-year-old winger completed the deal yesterday to give him a new weekly wage of £119,000 which outstrips that of Rio Ferdinand who was the club’s highest earner.The lucrative deal is also designed to keep him from the clutches of Real Madrid.United manager Ferguson took a swipe at Madrid for trying to lure his star player to Spain and confessed he was momentarily worried about whether Ronaldo would stay. But Ronaldo said: “Everything is sorted and I’m happy here. I never wanted to leave. I have good friends and colleagues here and everybody has helped me so much since I came here when I was 18.”I want to win trophies at this club and I think that is what will happen. I’ve improved a lot since I’ve been in Manchester and I think that will continue. I will improve more.”Ferguson was last night continuing efforts to take midfielder Owen Hargreaves to Old Trafford and it is understood the Bayern Munich star’s signature could be the next good news to be revealed by the club.Bayern’s exit from the Champions League this week has speeded up the deal and it is now thought that Hargreaves could be a United player as soon as the season is over.
Ferguson said: “The Spanish clubs kept talking about Cristiano as they don’t care about United or anybody else. They just care about themselves.
“When that happens constantly you do worry about the substance of it. But you know deep down it’s a game they play over there.
“It’s no use complaining to UEFA as nothing much would be done.”
Asked if Ronaldo could one day be spoken of in the same breath as world greats Pele and Maradona, Ferguson did not dismiss the notion.
“I think Cristiano is the best player in the world,” he said. “He has the skills of those players. Whether he will be remembered like those players is the challenge for him now.”
