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Today’s UEFA Champs League Final |
| Manchester United held off Chelsea's late charge in the Premier League title race. Now the Red Devils are out to reassert their dominance on a global stage in the Champions League final. |
United's half-century of European history goes up against the spending power of Chelsea and its Russian owner, Roman Abramovich, in Moscow's Luzhniki Stadium today in the first final between two English clubs.
Although English teams won the title — then called the European Cup — six times in a row between 1977 and '82, this is the first time the trophy is guaranteed to wind up in England.
Chelsea will argue it could have won the very first one in 1955.
The Football League wouldn't let Chelsea enter the first European Cup on the basis that the domestic competition should take precedence.
Now the Blues have finally made it to the final and Abramovich, whose millions have helped bring two domestic titles and turned Chelsea into a powerhouse, can savor the moment in his own country.
Chelsea's opponent is very familiar — the same Manchester United team that has beaten the Blues to the English title the last two years and is owned by American businessman Malcolm Glazer and his sons.
Instead of facing AC Milan's Kaka or Barcelona's Lionel Messi, Chelsea will again go up against Cristiano Ronaldo, Wayne Rooney and Carlos Tevez. United won their first meeting 2-0 at Old Trafford in September — Grant's first game in charge after he replaced Jose Mourinho — and Chelsea won 2-1 at Stamford Bridge last month.
Manager Alex Ferguson's United is going for a third European Cup title, to add to its triumphs in 1968 and 1999.
"We give them credit and they've probably deserved to win the league, but this is something totally different," Chelsea left back Ashley Cole said. "We're not going there to be second best.
People like John Terry and Didier Drogba said a long time ago that they want to win it, and this is our chance to do that."
While United's tradition in European soccer goes back to the days of Matt Busby and the team which was decimated by the Munich air crash 50 years ago, Chelsea is a comparative newcomer.
Apart from two triumphs in the now defunct Cup Winners Cup, the Blues have never made it to the final of the premier competition despite reaching four semifinals in five seasons.
While United looks to the counter attacking skills of Ronaldo, who has scored 41 league and cup goals this season, Chelsea hopes that Drogba can dominate the Red Devils defence and that Michael Ballack and Frank Lampard will control the midfield.
This final might appear to be a Premier League game masquerading as a European Cup final. But it will start only 75 minutes before midnight and finish on Thursday morning — the 10.45 p.m.
(1845 GMT) kickoff time decided by the demands of prime-time TV in western Europe — and in the unfamiliar surroundings of the Luzhniki Stadium.
The players also have to contend with a playing surface which could be a major problem.
The artificial surface normally used in the stadium has been removed and replaced with natural grass. But the first replacement surface was too bumpy and ripped up.
Matt Frost, an Englishmen called in to produce a field worthy of a final, had only 15 days to replace it.
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