LEAGUE
BARCA'S GREAT SHOW
FC Barcelona v Manchester
United - November 2, 1994
After one win in three games,
Barcelona were jittery,
Manchester United travelled to
the Nou Camp as group lead
ers, confident of finding more
space against Johan Cruyff's
team than they had done dur
ing the 2-2 draw at Old Trafford
a fortnight earlier. Bernd
Schuster, Johan Neeskens and
Terry Venables were among the
legion of TV commentators
beaming the match live to 33
countries. The attendance fig
ure was a paltry 114,273. The
scene was set for one of the
great European encounters
between two former champions.
To the delight of the
home fans, Manchester United
were unrecognisable - and
not only because of their
unaccustomed all-black strip.
Alex Ferguson, already
deprived of the suspended
Eric Cantona, did his usual
UEFA CHAMPIONS LEAGUE
jigsaw puzzle, trying to fit all
his foreign pieces into UEFA's
3+2 format for imported and
assimilated players. He opted
for the Irishmen, Denis Irwin
and Roy Keane, the
Welshmen, Ryan Giggs and
Mark Hughes, and the
Ukrainian, Andrei Kanchelskis.
Out went Danish goalkeeper
Peter Schmeichel and in, to
face Romario and Hristo
A rare situation at Nou Camp:
FC Barcelona's Dutch defender,
Ronald Koeman, comes too late
to block this shot from
Manchester United's Russian
striker, Andrei Kanchelskis.
Stoichkov, came Gary Walsh,
a keeper who had made 42
league appearances in 11
years. Also on the team-sheet
were unknowns like Nicky Butt,
Gary Neville, Paul Scholes and
David Beckham who are now
regular first-teamers.
Barcelona not only put
four goals past Walsh, but
controlled the game from start
to finish and produced a dis
play which the players still talk
about with relish. Jordi Cruyff,
now playing for United,
passed to Stoichkov for the
Bulgarian to hit his 1.00th goal
for Barcelona. On the stroke of
half-time, Romario chested
down a cross from Stoichkov,
and beat the two Garys,
Pallister and Walsh, to make it
2-0. Another left-footed shot
from Stoichkov added the third
in the 53rd minute and three
minutes from time, right-back
Albert Ferrer shook off a chal
lenge from Kanchelskis and
latched on to a rebound off
Pallister to score a rare goal.
Barca could have scored more.
They tore the United defence to
shreds by playing Jordi and
Stoichkov very wide on the
wings and asking Romario to
drop deep to pull the central
defenders out of position.
The result had resound
ing after-effects. For the
English media, it stressed that
United were ill-equipped to
compete in Europe. Morale
was so badly hit that the 3-1
defeat in Gothenburg on the
next match-day was hardly a
surprise. Barcelona were jubi
lant to have offered such a
magnificent image. Their joy,
however, was short-lived. With
two wins in six games, they
scraped into the quarter-finals,
where they were beaten by
Paris Saint-Germain.
At the end of a cam
paign when Johan Cruyff's
team won nothing, the perfor
mance against United was
hailed as by far the best of the
season. Alex Ferguson and
his side have bounced back
into the UEFA CHAMPIONS
LEAGUE - this time unham
pered by the restrictions of
foreign players.
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