Champions of Europe again!

Rather unsportingly and childishly, i'd just like to say: We did the Double!. In your face Chelsea!

Ahhhhh. I feel much better now. Especially after waking up bloody early and the having chest pains and palpitations watching the lads miss goalscoring opportunities and Ronaldo flubbing the penalty. It was well worth it to see John Terry falling on his ass. Never have i despised someone that much...wait i have. Many times over. I lied.

Anyhow for better football writing, check out John Doyle's :
Well before the end it was clear that whoever won this match would be worthy champions. When sporting competitions are conceived, the ideal is that a team will be crowned after deservedly conquering valiant and talented rivals in a tense, exhilarating drama that showcases both contenders' qualities, as well, perhaps, as some controversial vices (thanks for that, Didier). Frequently the final falls short, but tonight the teams truly delivered.

Reaching the final seemed to have liberated Sir Alex Ferguson as he removed the shackles he'd fitted to his players against Roma and Barcelona in previous rounds. His bold formation and attacking intent showed that he trusted his team's invention and precision to nullify Chelsea's power. And his judgement was quickly justified as the nimbleness and crispness of Paul Scholes and Michael Carrick was in perfect contrast to Chelsea's nervy stodginess. When Cristiano Ronaldo embellished Paul Scholes and Wes Brown's fine work on the left by steering a splendid header into the net, United's lead was richly deserved.

Chelsea's equaliser was fluky but, it revived them and in the second half they showed they had as much finesse as United - and it seemed their greater force would be decisive. By obligation rather than volition, United gradually reverted to the counter-attacking disposition of previous rounds. The main reason Chelsea didn't convert their pressure into goals in normal time was because United's defence, particularly Brown, remained as resolute as ever, though Rio Ferdinand and Nemanja Vidic did lapse in the 78th minute when they allowed Didier Drogba to casually turn and curl a fine shot against the post.

read more:
http://blogs.guardian.co.uk/sport/2008/05/21/the_teams_delivered_a_match_wo.html

However, for fairness sake, i've also included a few that lambasted my team's win..I can afford to since we are Champions!

Richard Williams The Guardian
May 22, 2008 12:30 AM

They did their best but it was still only a Premier League game with extra-time and trimmings. A battle between two adversaries who know each other's strengths and weaknesses inside out, the European Cup final of 2008 was a match totally devoid of the sort of exotic contrasts and unpredictable internal contests that once marked this most glamorous of club contests.

Until the scuffle that saw Didier Drogba sent off five minutes from the end of extra- time, it was not a particularly bad match. Chelsea and Manchester United seemed to have got the worst out of their systems when they reduced last year's final of the FA Cup to a wasteland. But last night was a further demonstration of economic power distorting the essential nature of a tournament that once pitted Di Stefano's Real Madrid against Kopa's Reims and Rivera's Milan against Cruyff's Ajax.

read more: http://blogs.guardian.co.uk/sport/2008/05/22/all_too_english_and_not_enough.html

Manchester United are once more engulfed in the delirious joy of Champions League melodrama. They were on the verge of defeat in the shoot-out as the Chelsea captain John Terry came up to take the penalty that would have brought the Champions League trophy to Stamford Bridge. His standing foot slipped as he struck the ball and the effort flew wide. A failure by Cristiano Ronaldo had been cancelled out.

The momentum was irreversibly United's and, in the end, Edwin van der Sar ensured that the trophy would come to Old Trafford for the third time by saving the spot kick from the substitute Niciolas Anelka. This is a club that cannot come by glory in this tournament until it has scared itself senseless. The Luzhniki Stadium witnessed a spectacle to compare with the comeback in 1999 when Bayern Munich were overtaken at the close of the final.

The memorability of such a moment depends, as well, on the images of the losers' unforgettable pain. Terry had been magnificent and, 11 minutes into extra-time, had somehow twisted his neck to head away a shot by the substitute Ryan Giggs that was bound for the net. It seemed inconceivable then that such a character could be brought low.

He is no culprit. The single person meriting blame is Didier Droga, sent off four minutes from the close of extra-time for aiming a slap at the United centre-half Nemanja Vidic following a melee after Chelsea had expected the ball to be returned to them at a throw-in. That folly by the Ivorian did not mar one of the most engrossing Champions League finals of modern times.

There is always a craving to consecrate winners as deserving of their prize. It is tempting to do that because, in the first-half particularly, they scored, wasted openings and were thwarted by the goalkeeper Petr Cech. That was an outstanding spell, but Chelsea's self-belief was also imposing. At times they appeared ready to overpower Sir Alex Ferguson's team.

The Scot declared this to be the first major shoot-out to have gone his way. Ignoring the fact that the bauble of the Community Shield came United's way in just such a fashion, against Chelsea, at the start of this season. Ferguson's memory has a great deal to contain and he has now conquered in all four of his European finals since the days with Aberdeen.

It might all have been different in Moscow and Drogba had struck the post during extra-time. Nothing, it appears, goes in favour of the Chelsea manager Avram Grant for long. The Israeli could well have imagined that his luck was turning when his team came through an initial bombardment. Now there will be more uncertainty and disquiet.

Terry's failure from the spot brought a gesture of wry exasperation from Roman Abramovich. The owner will ask himself if he is employing an unlucky manager or one who falls a little short of what is needed. Either way, the Russian, deliberating in Moscow last night, cannot ignore the fact that Chelsea have failed to take trophy for the first time in four seasons. Nor would he have liked the way in which United initially took his side by surprise.

To Chelsea's regret it turned out that it is possible for one of these teams to surprise the other. United did more still, disconcerting the opposition with tactics that helped Ronaldo score against these adversaries for the first time in his career. United had been sent out in a 4-4-2 formation that some might have supposed had been stashed in the Old Trafford museum. The purpose of it was to exploit the narrowness of Chelsea's 4-3-3 system and bedevil the full-backs. Michael Essien was the principal target. Accustomed as the Ghanaian midfielder is to operating on the right of the defence on occasions such as this, he has no experience of the suffering to which Ronaldo subjected him.The winger had left him utterly stranded in one incident and then embarrassed him more severely with the opener in the 27th minute. Paul Scholes exchanged passes with Wes Brown on the right and the latter stroked an unexpectedly good inswinging cross with his left foot. Ronaldo skipped in front of a static Essien to glide a perfect header low into the net.

It was a bruising encounter, with Scholes, for instance, requiring attention to a bloodied nose after a crash between himself and Claude Makelele that led to a yellow card for each of them. All the same, United were not diverted from performing with freedom. Owen Hargreaves brought his running power to bear from right midfield, the position in which got his earlier Champions League winners' medal with Bayern Munich in 2001.

Ten minutes before half-time, United should have been in a virtually unassailable position, but Petr Cech parried Carlos Tevez's header and then reached Michael Carrick's shot from that rebound. There was a further opportunity nine minutes later when Ronaldo could not quite get to the low ball by Wayne Rooney that had eluded Makelele. Nonetheless, United by then had been given a clue as to Chelsea's powers of recovery. When Drogba headed a deep cross into the centre after 34 minutes Rio Ferdinand, under pressure from Michael Ballack, knocked it towards his own net, only for Van der Sar to tip the ball onto the bar.

Chelsea had their fortune when pulling level. Essien's 25-yarder cannoned of Nemanja Vidic and then Ferdinand to set up Lampard for a coolly taken goal. Though Chelsea had been rallying, their feelings much have contained a measure of relief. It invigorated the team thereafter. Each side took the other to its limits.

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