![[g]lobe Trekker](http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_Es5araXS42U/SV2AMauoJSI/AAAAAAAABew/7Q-UomEOMUE/S1600-R/globe.png)
Even on the occasion of his heaviest defeat, spiritually if not literally, it was possible to leave Wembley with an even greater admiration for Sir Alex Ferguson.
He wants to go again, bless him. By the time of the next Champions League final, in Munich on May 19, 2012, he will be 70. If Manchester United get there, the club’s tragic association with the city will make the weight of history almost oppressively emotional. And there, in his path, will in all likelihood stand the greatest team of the Champions League era, and possibly the greatest of all time: Barcelona.
Yet Ferguson accepts his lot. If it is his fate to spend his final years as manager of Manchester United in a forlorn struggle against the forces of the fantastic, he accepts it, just as athletes will take their places in the starting blocks beside Usain Bolt at the Olympics, or grand prix drivers continue to rev their engines on the starting grid behind the Red Bull car of Sebastian Vettel.
Plenty to ponder: Sir Alex Ferguson looks pensive in defeat
Barcelona are taking this sport to a new level, playing it in a way we have never seen before. There have been other great teams through six decades of European football that began with a five-time triumph for Real Madrid, but the manner in which Barcelona achieve victory is unique.
We know we have never seen anything like Barcelona because their style of play has inspired its own phraseology. Until now, nobody had used the term tiki-taka — tiquitaca in Spanish — to describe an intense style of short passing and movement. Barcelona are radical, Barcelona are new.
Manchester United, the most successful club in the history of English football under Ferguson, were made to look slow and old-fashioned by comparison. Their manager appeared aged by it, too, even though, football obsessive that he is, he could not help smiling at the memory of the Barcelona performance, painful though it might have been to recall.
That is why he is to be praised, even in this most humbling of defeats. He has so much to lose next season, yet sees only the thrill, the test, the gain. Suppose Liverpool are sufficiently inspired by Kenny Dalglish to claim a 19th title and swipe his record? Suppose he concedes one to Manchester City? Suppose Barcelona continue to present a beautiful, yet insurmountable obstacle to his European ambitions?
Under cover: Wayne Rooney tries to hide his dejection
Ferguson refuses to countenance negativity. ‘It’s not easy, but it’s a challenge,’ he said, ‘and you shouldn’t be afraid of a challenge. They beat us 4-0 in 1994 and we used it as a stepping stone. We improved from that, we want to improve from this.
‘We have some very good players and we’ll mull over the way forward in the summer. We’ve never lacked ideas at this club and, hopefully, we’ll come up with the right ones.’
In the circumstances, it was a marvellous little speech, full of hope at a time when despair would have been a more realistic emotion.
Practically, how does anyone catch Barcelona in less than a year? Xavi will be 32 in January, but is showing little sign of age, Andres Iniesta was 27 this month, Lionel Messi and Pedro are still only 23. This team have another two seasons, at least, barring injury.
And if this quartet, plus David Villa, who will be 30 in December, are the greatest forwards in the world, where does Ferguson find the players with the potential to match them? He already lost one, Cristiano Ronaldo, to Real Madrid. Wesley Sneijder or Luka Modric are good, but not that good.
Maybe next time: Sir Alex comes within touching distance of Old Big Ears
Wayne Rooney was the only Manchester United player who lived with Barcelona on Saturday night, but even he could not get in their team at present, unless he fancied playing right back. Ferguson calls it a challenge, but matching Barcelona is more a poisoned chalice.
Pep Guardiola, their coach, said this was a better performance than the Rome victory over United in 2009, and he was right. Certainly, it was a more shattering defeat for Ferguson. In Rome, he claimed, an early goal ruined the plan he wished to implement, and the team subsequently underperformed. What was the excuse here?
United gave it a go in plucky underdog fashion for 10 minutes and were then simply overwhelmed by Barcelona’s excellence. Mike Phelan, Ferguson’s assistant, stood in the technical area in shorts and training shoes looking like a particularly ineffectual youth coach at a Sunday six-a-side tournament.
Guardiola, sharp black suit, shaved head, impossibly thin tie, prowled the space to his right displaying a furiously short fuse with anything less than brilliance. He saved his praise for the 124 passes that Xavi successfully completed until after the match; it was the 12 he miscalculated during it that vexed him.
Worthy adversary: Perfectionist Pep Guardiola (left) is solely responsible for Ferguson's two losers' medals
This was football of the future and put one in mind of the comment made by England centre half Syd Owen after seven goals had been conceded to the magnificent Hungarians in Budapest in 1954. ‘It was like playing people from outer space,’ he said.
All the more remarkable, then, that Guardiola seems intent on leaving Barcelona after one more season.
‘Players get tired of the manager, the manager gets tired of the players,’ he explained. Yet how can any man tire of this? Surely the challenge at Barcelona is to continue breaking down and rebuilding the tiki-taka teams, the way Ferguson creates and evolves through the decades at Manchester United?
Ferguson looked genuinely bemused when told of Guardiola’s intentions. He would not weary of managing Barcelona, the way he is not weary of trying to find ways of beating them, and we are not wearied watching this seemingly doomed spectacle.
It may be a quixotic task that Ferguson is attempting late in life but in this, at least, the Spanish should understand and admire him, too.
