CHAMPIONS LEAGUE: MANCHESTER UNITED-FC BARCELONA (This article is available in English and Español)

As the legendary Serbian coach Vujadin Boskov would say, "Football is football" and therefore in this sport anything is possible, but if we are honest and realistic in the semifinals of the Champions League between Manchester United and FC Barcelona, it will be necessary a miracle to see a Manchester United´s defeat, since these teams arrive to the eliminatory in a very different situation.

On the one hand, Manchester United is perhaps the best team of the European Football at this moment, since it leads strongly the competitive English Premier League, being the top scorer team in the Premiership- it has scored 72 goals- and being the team with less goals received -only 18 goals in 34 games-, who can ask for more? . Indeed, United is an excellent team in all its lines: for example the veteran and experienced goalkeeper Edwin Var der Sar, or the excellent defensive line,being the leader Rio Ferdinand and the Serbian Nemanja Vidic (it is possible that the Serbian will not play the first game against FC Barcelona, since he is injured), or a very balanced midfield with player with defensive rigour as Owen Hargreaves and Michael Carrick and with excellent quality as Nani, Anderson or Paul Scholes and of course with an incredible offensive line with players as Wayne Rooney, the "Apache" Tévez or the best player of the moment in the European football, Cristiano Ronaldo, who is having an impressive season, scorin 46 goals in 54 games, being the undisputable leader of a team, which has only lost 4 games in the Premiership (the last defeat was on 10 of February against Manchester City) and in the Champions League is unbeaten. So it is a very difficult rival and we think that it is the most favourite team in order to be European Champion (in fact United this season has won all the games played against FC Liverpool and Chelsea).

On the other hand, we have a pathetic FC Barcelona lately, because of the last 7 league´s games, it has only been able to win 1, being unable to maintain the advantage on the scoreboard when it has played against “fearsome” teams as Real Betis or Recreativo de Huelva and being able to win only 4 league´s games as a visitor throughout the season. Therefore, the prospects are not too good for the eliminatory against Manchester. Barça has many problems during this part of the season, since for example the defensive line is playing horrible, specially players like Zambrotta or Eric Abidal (the French admitted last Tuesday that he is playing bad because he has psychological problems and adaptation´s problems), besides this line will have an important absent for the first match of the qualifying, the absent of Carles Puyol.
Moreover, we must mention other FC Barcelona´s problems like for example the situation of Yaya Toure, who can not stand at a good level more than 60 minutes in a game because of some problems in his back, or the fact that FC Barcelona does not have specific wingers, or the low level of players as Henry and Eto'o, or Deco´s situation, since he does not play a official game since february, or that we have no news of Ronaldinho-well, officially he is "injured" -, or Messi ´situation, since he is without competition´s rhythm, or Thuram and Zambrotta´s indiscipline, since they arrived late to train, or Frank Rijkaard´ decisions, since he does things without a lot of sense lately. So, many strange circumstance to play calm this difficult eliminatory, so we think that we will see another failure of the president, Joan Laporta, who is getting used to have it lately, since last weeks the basketball´s team was eliminated from the Euroleague and the handball team was eliminated in the semifinals of the Euroleague after a horrific game against THW Kiel, since FC Barcelona received 41 goals. So, it appears that next 30 of April Joan Laporta will suffer a real nightmare at the "Theatre of Dreams" of Manchester. So Mr Laporta, When will you resign?

Cheers,

J&F