Ferguson focuses on the present

BARCELONA v MANCHESTER UNITEDIT WAS the moment the blood in Alex Ferguson's veins might have turned into vintage red wine: May 26th, 1999, a date that will be forever ingrained in the mind of every Manchester United supporter yet one, tellingly, the club's manager was decidedly unwilling to talk about as he arrived in Barcelona yesterday at the scene of his greatest triumph.

Ferguson has always believed a successful club must look forward rather than back, and his team talk before tonight's semi-final promises to be one of the more powerful of his 21 years in office.

It will be about "making history" and the importance of returning the European Cup to Old Trafford, particularly in a year that has marked the 50th anniversary of the Munich air disaster.

Most of all, it will be about the fact there is a considerable difference between being great footballers and football greats, and that the current side, for all their brilliance, will not cross that line until they do something to stop people talking about 1999.

This is why Ferguson neatly avoided getting caught up in any nostalgic notion that just because United won the European Cup in this stadium nine years ago it will have any bearing on what happens there this evening.

Other than describing it as an "indescribable feeling", there were no dewy-eyed reminiscences about that balmy May night when everything came together in stoppage time, Ole Gunnar Solskjaer prodding out an immortalised leg, Peter Schmeichel doing cartwheels and Samuel Kuffour, the Bayern Munich defender, pounding his fists into the turf in frustration. The past was the past, according to Ferguson, and he spoke like a man who had waited too long and was impatient to enjoy a repeat of that success.

"It's almost 10 years ago now," he said. "The team of today is the team of today. They don't need to worry about the past. They can see it on video and it's shown many times on television, so it's not been lost on this team. But the most important thing is what they can shape themselves - their own history, hopefully."

It was a rousing little speech Ferguson gave at the team hotel and it was typical of the man that, when he took a final training session inside an otherwise empty Camp Nou last night, it was the first time he had set foot inside the stadium since lifting that famous hulk of silverware for the first and only time.

Ferguson, in many ways, is one of football's old romantics but it rarely, if ever, affects his hard-headed thinking.

At Manchester airport yesterday the first three players to check in were Ryan Giggs, Paul Scholes and Gary Neville. All three were members of the team who reached the 1999 final and are as enthusiastic as ever to be involved.

Yet Neville, after all his injury problems, is little more than a cheerleader these days and, for the first time in over a decade, neither Giggs nor Scholes is guaranteed a place in the matches that matter.

Ferguson is accelerating the process of redesigning his team and Giggs, in particular, looks vulnerable, having felt the whiplash of his manager's tongue at Blackburn Rovers on Saturday. His withdrawal at half-time was for the good of the team rather than to rest his legs.

Ferguson spoke of his players needing to "raise the bar", but he also expressed satisfaction that they were in a far stronger position than at this stage of the competition last season, when they lost meekly to Milan.

"We're much better prepared this time," he said. "We weren't ready last year, but this time around we are a lot stronger. We've been able to change the squad around and we're not as tired as a year ago."

That said, he was guarded when it was put to him that his team were widely expected to see off a Barcelona side who, if not quite in the grip of crisis, are teetering close to the edge. "I don't see us as favourites," he remarked. "We are talking about two very balanced teams in terms of history, the way we play the game and the number of good quality players. I think it would have been the most attractive final, to be honest."

Ferguson recalled the "lesson" that was dealt out to his players in a 4-0 defeat by Barcelona here in 1994 and, more happily, he spoke of the 3-3 draw in this stadium four years later.

"It was a demonstration of both clubs' attacking beliefs. There were periods when I thought we could lose by 10 and periods when I thought we were going to win by 10. That was the way the game was played . . . boom, boom, boom. It was so open."

He expects another memorable occasion, encouraged by the absence from the Barcelona ranks of Ronaldinho, who would be "badly missed", subdued only by late doubts over the fitness of half his defence. "This, hopefully, will be our time again," said Ferguson.

1999? That was so last century.