Barcelona v Manchester United Champions League final live | Scott Murray

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Dimitar Berbatov doesn't even make the Manchester United bench: Van der Sar, Fabio, Ferdinand, Vidic, Evra, Valencia, Carrick, Giggs, Park, Rooney, Hernandez.
Subs: Kuszczak, Owen, Anderson, Smalling, Nani, Scholes, Fletcher.

Barcelona club captain Carles Puyol doesn't start, with Javier Mascherano taking his place in central defence: Valdes, Alves, Mascherano, Pique, Abidal, Xavi, Busquets, Iniesta, Pedro, Messi, Villa.
Subs: to come

On the other hand: United are possibly facing The Best Club Side In The History Of All Football, Ever.

Here's another plus point for United: The pressure really is on Barca to deliver tonight, and not just because everybody expects them to win. Consider this: if they lose this match, their claim to be The Best Club Side In The History Of All Football, Ever will be up in smoke. For good. They'll have let Manchester United win twice as many European Cups during their imperial phase - the 2006 win was by a different team - and that's no way to be building a legacy. Passing it around nicely is all good and well, but the greatest sides repeatedly put the silver in the cabinet. Look at Arsenal.

Anyway, the game. Although the Spanish champions and purveyors of the finest tiki-taka are the firm favourites, nobody in their right mind would write off an Alex Ferguson side. Or a Manchester United one, for that matter. So expect this to be close. Closer even than the 2009 final in Rome between these two sides, which nobody thought was particularly close at all until this week, when nearly 1,000 articles explaining that it was actually a bit closer than you remember have been published. Hmm. But why should it be close? Here's why: David Pleat's plan to beat Barca.

Further further reading while you wait: OK, OK, it's not about football, but the subject did support Manchester United.

Further reading while you wait: There's plenty of comment on this site ahead of the game, but if you're desirous of a modern Manchester United classic, I'll point you no further than the excellent On The Road by Daniel Harris. A fine read, and you don't need to take my word for it, it's already had the thumbs up from our very own Rob Smyth and Daniel Taylor.

Kick off: 7.45pm in the British summer money.

One last minor historical point: This is the first European Cup final to be held at Wembley featuring either Barcelona or Manchester United not to have a player called Eusebio in one of the starting line-ups. That's not very interesting, is it? I can only apologise, it's all I've got.

Sadly, the old dump we knew and loved is no more, replaced by this soulless pile. Never mind, we'll all have to make the best of it. It's about time someone sprinkled some stardust on this new stadium - nothing particularly memorable has happened here yet, save Croatia popping over to riff on Steve McClaren's pain that time - and with both Barcelona and Manchester United having 100 percent European Cup form here, perhaps tonight's the night.

The old Empire Stadium was good to both of these grand clubs. In 1968, United won their first European Cup there against Benfica, a beatific light shining down on Matt Busby, Bobby Charlton and Bill Foulkes as they paraded Busby's holy grail around the ! other-wo rldly, wide-open spaces of Wembley, ten years after the horrors of Munich. Twenty four years later, Johan Cruyff's Dream Team bested Sampdoria in the same atmospheric arena, finally landing Barcelona their first European Cup after decades of living in Real Madrid's shadow.


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