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Famous Quote

"Even John Terry slipping as he took the penalty might have been fate. Who knows?"

- ALEX FERGUSONmanager of Manchester United Football Club, on his team's Champions League victory following a missed penalty by Chelsea Football Club defender John Terry

Manchester United crowned European champions!

It was bloodly emotional night for me... penalties shootout can be cruel at times.

Park JS wasn't even on the bench... that was a huge dissapointment before the start of the match.

Fifty years after the Munich air crash that claimed eight of his team-mates, a tearful Sir Bobby Charlton saw Manchester United crowned champions of Europe for the third time last night, holding their nerve in a penalty shoot-out on an evening when emotions were frayed and tempers flared in the Luzhniki Stadium. Didier Drogba was sent off on what may prove an inglorious Chelsea swansong.

Sir Alex Ferguson suggested that fate had helped United to mark the anniversary of the Munich disaster by winning the Champions League, but the evening took them on a rollercoaster ride that encompassed Cristiano Ronaldo’s early goal, an equaliser from Frank Lampard, a red card for Drogba in extra time after he slapped Nemanja Vidic during a 19-man mêlée and, ultimately, the shoot-out.

Ronaldo, astonishingly, had his penalty saved and, four successful kicks later, John Terry had the chance to win it, but the Chelsea captain, deputising for Drogba, slipped as he shot and the ball shaved the outside of a post. With the fourteenth kick, Edwin van der Sar saved from Nicolas Anelka and the European Cup was United’s. Terry was in tears as Rio Ferdinand and Ryan Giggs lifted the trophy.

It was an historic night in many ways for United, with Giggs, a second-half substitute, eclipsing Charlton’s record of 758 appearances for the club. Charlton, now 70, climbed the steps to pick up a plaque on the club’s behalf, while his four fellow Munich survivors — Harry Gregg, Bill Foulkes, Albert Scanlon and Kenny Morgans — looked on.

“I had said beforehand that we wouldn’t let down the memory of the Busby Babes,” Ferguson said. “Even John Terry slipping as he took the penalty might have been fate. Who knows? We had a cause and people with causes can be very difficult to barter with.

“It’s a fantastic achievement. When we [Ronaldo] missed the penalty we thought we were in trouble, but I’m delighted for my players. I think this has the makings of my best team.”
Ronaldo admitted that he had feared he would end up as the villain of the piece. “At that moment I think we’re going to lose,” he said. “I miss the penalty, the worst day of my life, but now it’s the happiest day of my life. It means everything for me.”

勇敢面对...

汶川地震 -> 还在废墟中的人们,坚持!!!

勇敢面对!

Talent and character hallmarks of worthy champions

The simple truth is Manchester United are champions because they have been the outstanding team in England this season.

It was a season that began in inglorious fashion for Ferguson’s team: only two points and a solitary goal from their first three matches, which included the loss of Wayne Rooney to a broken foot in the opening match against Reading, a red card for Ronaldo away to Portsmouth – courtesy of Bennett – and a derby defeat by Manchester City. There followed a series of 1-0 wins, punctuated only by a 2-0 victory over Chelsea in Avram Grant’s first match in charge in September, until the floodgates opened with a 4-0 win over Wigan on October 6, the start of a six-match sequence that yielded 22 goals.

Initially they were in pursuit of Arsenal, who celebrated a stoppage-time equaliser against United at the Emirates Stadium on November 3 as if they had won the title. Arsenal were even more buoyant by the start of February, when they moved five points clear after a 2-0 home win over Blackburn Rovers, with United having lost to City again the previous day.

If there was a turning point, it came on February 16, when United and Arsenal met in the FA Cup fifth round. The way they set about Arsenal, winning 4-0, set the tone for the next two months. By the time Arsenal lost 2-1 at Old Trafford in the Premier League on April 13, they were out of the race. Only a resurgent Chelsea had a chance of catching United.

United’s performance level dipped as the rigours of the season began to take their toll, but their character was never in doubt. It was seen when they scored late equalisers away to Middlesbrough and Blackburn Rovers and when they came from behind to beat Arsenal. It was seen again yesterday when they had to dig deep against a vibrant Wigan. That is why they’re champions. That and sheer talent.

Fergie's Record

Sir Alex Ferguson is arguably the most successful manager in the history of English football. Since he arrived at Old Trafford in November 1986, United have won ten titles, one European Cup, five FA Cups, one European Cup Winners’ Cup and two League Cups. The only manager who comes close to his record is the late Bob Paisley, who won six titles, three European Cups, one Uefa Cup and three League Cups with Liverpool from 1974 to 1983. Ferguson also won nine leading trophies in Scotland with Aberdeen from 1978 to 1986.

生命就是差不多這樣

生命就是差不多這樣，大致如此...

*source of picture: postsecret@blogspot

Scholes fire United into Final!

Paul Scholes celebrates the goal against Barcelona that ensured a place for United in the final on May 21. We will take on Chelsea!

From The Times
May 1, 2008
Paul Scholes adds to tale of destiny

Oliver Kay

As on their two previous European Cup final appearances, Manchester United will travel to Moscow this month accompanied by a sense of destiny. “Fate is fate,” Sir Alex Ferguson said on Tuesday night as he contemplated the prospect of winning the Champions League 50 years after the Munich air disaster, though experience taught him to stop short of declaring precisely what that fate might be.

By his own admission, Ferguson has been “a wee bit nervous” all season about the emotional burden that his team had been carrying on the path that they now finally know will lead to Moscow. Some will doubt whether such a responsibility can really be felt by a multinational group of highly paid youngsters with their own agendas to pursue, but ask any of those players - Wayne Rooney, Cristiano Ronaldo, Patrice Evra - about Munich and they will mention the January afternoon when Ferguson sat them down to watch a documentary about the disaster and to listen to an address from Sir Bobby Charlton. Ferguson said that “you could have heard a pin drop”.

All of this brings an extra sense of poignancy to United's appearance in the final on May 21, but that is nothing new to the club. When they first lifted the giant trophy in 1968, defeating Benfica at Wembley, it was ten years after Duncan Edwards and seven other members of Matt Busby's team perished after an air crash in Munich. Their second triumph, after a dramatic comeback to beat Bayern Munich in Barcelona, came on May 26, 1999 on what would have been Busby's 90th birthday. On both occasions it was seen as their destiny.

But what of the numerous occasions when United failed to fulfil their destiny? In 1998, when they fell to AS Monaco at the quarter-final stage, it was 40 years after Munich; in 2002, when Ferguson planned to retire, the final was in Glasgow, the city of his birth, and they were beaten by Bayer Leverkusen in the semi-finals; in 2003, when the final was at Old Trafford, they lost to Real Madrid in the quarter-finals. Destiny, it seems, is only ever destiny when the story follows the script.

But Paul Scholes, if he was the sentimental type, would be forgiven for feeling that it was a sense of destiny that drove him to score the spectacular goal that beat Barcelona on Tuesday. In 1999, while Peter Schmeichel, David Beckham, Ole Gunnar Solskjaer and others cavorted around the Nou Camp with the trophy, Scholes and Roy Keane, the captain, were on the periphery of the celebrations, dressed in suits, having missed the final through suspension. Keane never got the chance to make up for that, but now Scholes has the opportunity.

According to Ferguson, he will be the first name on the teamsheet in Moscow, while the club are expected to offer him a one-year extension to his contract, which expires at the end of next season.

Scholes was the man everyone wanted to talk to at Old Trafford on Tuesday night, but, true to form, he dodged the media scrum, leaving others to pay tribute. “Scholesy didn't say much afterwards,” Michael Carrick, his midfield colleague, said. “He just slipped away very quickly. That's just the way he is. But he's a superb player, maybe not as appreciated as he should have been. I've never met a character like Scholesy, certainly not someone who's that good. I think he's a footballer's footballer.”

Scholes's place in United folklore is already guaranteed, but for others the final in Moscow will bring the opportunity to write their name indelibly in the pages of the club's history.

For players such as Rio Ferdinand, Ronaldo and Rooney, it will be a first Champions League final. For Edwin van der Sar, who won the tournament with Ajax in 1995 and lost in the final a year later, it will be an opportunity that he feared would never come around again. The same applies to Ferguson, but it also applies to the club as a whole, for whom something that looks suspiciously like destiny is beckoning once more.