AS CREATORS of breathless tension, few happenings in sport come close to the minutes before the first bell rings in a heavyweight title match between two exceptional fighters. For some of us, the football game scheduled for Old Trafford on December 9 threatens to be one of them. When Muhammad Ali went inside the ropes at Madison Square Garden for his first meeting with Joe Frazier, and then again when Ali faced George Foreman in the middle of an African night, there was a feeling that ringside tickets should have brought free use of an oxygen mask. It would be silly to suggest that a group decider in the Champions League is comparably momentous but so many hopes and dreams are riding on Manchester United's collision with Bayern Munich that anybody capable of watching in a mood of objective calm should be barred from the ground on principle.
At the Nou Camp last Wednesday, United and Barcelona reminded us of how much thrilling pleasure 22 men and a ball can provide. Yes, much of the defending was rash and riddled with flaws but the hour and a half was such a festival of the positive and the rapturously entertaining that even the most serious football people should have no difficulty resisting the temptation to carp. If there was a negative aspect to the occasion it could only be the thought that its outcome killed off Barcelona's challenge for this season's European Cup and left United with one more brutally demanding assignment between them and advancement to the knock-out stages of the competition.
Many of us who went to Catalonia longing for the demise of the Spanish champions' aspirations found ourselves swung towards sincere sympathy by the aggressive skill and elan with which they strove to avoid elimination. Above all, there was a sense of genuine regret that a player of Rivaldo's exhilarating quality has been lost for another year to the greatest of club tournaments. On an evening intoxicatingly rich in attacking flair, the Brazilian separated himself as the supreme talent on the field. In the second-half especially, his tall, graceful figure was the embodiment of elegant deadliness, and British pulses stuttered whenever he was on the ball.
His passing from midfield contributed vitally to the benefits Barcelona gained from their wholehearted commitment to maintaining width in their attacks and the forward-thrusting mobility that made him their most productive finisher reflected a determined competitiveness which was the perfect adjunct to his brilliance. Remembering the lethargic anonymity of his performance in the midst of Brazil's spineless surrender in last summer's World Cup final, it was wonderful to see Rivaldo demonstrate the validity of his reputation as one of the best players in the global game.
No individual in the Bayern line-up is likely to exert such pervasive influence but as a team they are sure to present Alex Ferguson with more problems than he needs. Although United had them beaten in Munich until Peter Schmeichel succumbed to a moment of lunacy, it must be admitted that over the course of the match the Germans had a worrying share of scoring chances. At both international and club level, the footballers of their nation have repeatedly shown the resilience and combative morale to indicate that even an atmosphere as electric as that to be expected at Old Trafford will not intimidate Bayern. They did, after all, follow their home win over Barcelona with a victory at the Nou Camp and had they not begun their Group D campaign with an astonishing loss to Brondby they would already be assured of progressing.
Ferguson knows that the risk-taking approach to defending adopted by Barcelona will not be favoured by Bayern. "They will play deep and try to catch us on the counter-attack," he said yesterday. "They are a physically powerful team and they are good tactically. I'm bound to have a lot of respect for their defenders, considering that I tried in the past to sign two of them, Markus Babbel and the Ghanaian Osei Kuffour. With Lothar Matthaus as sweeper, they are undoubtedly strong at the back. Stefan Effenberg would usually be their most creative player in midfield and they have forwards who can do damage.
"But they are a good, solid team rather than a dazzling one and if we are at our best we are well capable of getting the victory we require to be sure of going through. It would obviously suit us if Juventus beat Galatasaray in their delayed Group B match next week and more or less guaranteed that the 10 points Bayern now have would give them a place in the quarter-finals as one of the two best runners-up from the six groups. With an opportunity to settle things on our own ground, however, we shouldn't have to look for favours from other teams.
"One of the concerns I have is the hectic programme of fixtures directly ahead of us. With Leeds on Sunday, Tottenham in the Worthington Cup on Wednesday and Aston Villa in another important League game on the Saturday, we have to cope with three matches in six days. You can be certain that quite a few of the first-choice men will be rested in midweek. The depth of the squad should still allow me to send out a team with a good chance of beating Spurs but I'll be mainly relying on my fringe players for that one."
Ryan Giggs's recovery from a small fracture in a foot has reached the stage where he will be able to take a place on the bench against Leeds today and the need to sharpen him up with matches will probably mean that he is one of the few big names included on Wednesday. One player for whom a rest will be particularly helpful is Denis Irwin. That remarkable veteran has been among Ferguson's most valued servants in his reign at Old Trafford but the Irishman's form is betraying unmistakable signs of decline and the best prospect of slowing the process lies in giving him breaks to keep him fresh.
There is also alarming evidence of reduced powers in the work of Schmeichel. No man, not even Eric Cantona, has done more than the goalkeeper to underpin Ferguson's accumulation of success with United but the aura of invincibility that surrounded the Dane for years is now a memory. He contrived a couple of heroic saves in Barcelona but the certainty with which he once read danger in opposition assaults has gone, and it is increasingly plain that his decision to retire from Premiership action at the end of this season is wise. In fact, replacing him earlier than that may be a sensible option.
The bulk of United's recollections of those marvellous 90 minutes in Spain will, of course, glow with satisfaction. Their verve captivated a fair percentage of the population at home. ITV's audience for their coverage peaked at 12.1 million, the highest figure for a sports programme on any channel since the World Cup. There were disappointments for Ferguson, notably the sight of David Beckham struggling to have a concentrated, influential impact on the game and of Roy Keane failing to be the pivotal force he should be in such an arena (his erratic application of his talents helped Rivaldo to hurt United). But there were glorious compensations, none more significant than the way Dwight Yorke's intelligence, ebullience and technical excellence nourished the confidence and effectiveness of Andy Cole.
"There is tremendous chemistry between them, on and off the field," said the manager. "They have become really close friends, soul brothers, and they are definitely combining brilliantly for us at the front. Our overall attacking play, our penetration, was often terrific. We could have scored six goals at the Nou Camp and that's quite a thought. It's true we could have lost six but I was willing to take risks to go for the win that would have meant qualification. And nothing other than a win was any good to Barcelona, so an open game was unavoidable. It was a horrible blow to lose an early goal, which seems to be a speciality with us, but I was proud of how we came back at them and went in front twice.
"If we could cure the habit of giving opponents a goal of a start, there is no saying what heights this team could reach. I accept that Barcelona had several key players missing, especially in defence, but our performance was outstanding. It was fantastic to be involved in such an occasion. I've been trying to get it across to our lads just how much they achieved, how far they have come. It should do wonders for their self-belief."
He thinks his men have developed sufficiently to spare themselves the agony of failure they endured at Old Trafford in a European Cup semi-final against Borussia Dortmund two seasons ago and against Monaco in a quarter-final last season. The Monaco result he could bear because injuries had denied him the use of Schmeichel, Giggs, Keane and Gary Pallister. That Borussia Dortmund experience still rankles as he recalls 15 clear-cut chances that were spurned. "We had eight one-on-one with the goalkeeper and that's a miraculous total," he said. "You are lucky if you get two of those in a major European game. Ottmar Hitzfeld, who was coach of Dortmund then and is now in charge of Bayern, must suspect that he will never be blessed with such good fortune again."
Perhaps. But let's hope the right scoreline is on the board before some of us are reduced to gibbering wrecks.
