Ferguson hoping to hail class of 2008 as greatest ever

LONDON: Sir Alex Ferguson will march his troops on Moscow this week with a simple message: come back with the Champions League trophy and let history remember you as my best ever team.

In his 22 years at the Old Trafford helm, the Scot has built several great sides, from Cantona and co. in the mid nineties to the homegrown treble-winning squad of 1999.

But if his current charges manage to complete a league and Champions League double against Chelsea on Wednesday, the Scot believes the Cristiano Ronaldo-inspired class of 2007-08 will have earned the right to be regarded as the finest of the lot.

What would make that achievement all the more remarkable is the short space of time in which Ferguson has engineered a remarkable turnaround in the club's fortunes.

Only a couple of years ago United were locked in a painful transitional phase from which it seemed they might never emerge, struggling behind Chelsea and Arsenal in the league and hapless in the Champions League.

Successive second round defeats to Porto and AC Milan were followed by a failure to even get out of the group stages in 2005/06 - and that was a pool containing Lille, Villarreal and Benfica, hardly a contender for the group of death title.

Many felt Ferguson's time at Old Trafford was coming to an end, but the Scot banished all thoughts of walking away and set about building another trophy-hungry side around Ronaldo and Wayne Rooney.

Out went the likes of Roy Keane and Ole Gunnar Solskjaer and even the club's top scorer, Ruud van Nistelrooy, was jettisoned to make way for hungry young talents such as Anderson, Nani and Carlos Tevez.

The newcomers have slotted in faster than anyone could imagine just as Ronaldo has emerged as arguably the most potent attacking force in world football.

Strengthening the cocktail, Rio Ferdinand has been in the form of his life this season while Paul Scholes-who missed the 1999 final through suspension but has been assured he will start in Moscow-and Ryan Giggs continue to defy the march of time.

Typically, Ferguson sees the roots of his current success in the pain he and his staff suffered two years ago.

"You have fear of many things but sometimes that drives you on," the United boss admitted. "I felt it was an important time for us when we started to make another change and began to rebuild again.

"It is not easy to manage change and when you see a team starting to break up due to age, injuries or merely because others are not maintaining the level they should be at.

"But bringing in these young players over the last two or three years gives you optimism you can do it again. If I didn't think like that with players like (Wayne) Rooney, (Cristiano) Ronaldo, Giggs and Scholes then I really am a pessimist."

Regardless of what happens on Wednesday, Ferguson knows that, even with his 67th birthday approaching, he has ensured that the timing of his eventual departure from the United hotseat will be a matter for himself to decide.

The United boss can also be sure that, Real Madrid overtures to Ronaldo notwithstanding, he will have the same squad to play with next season.

How his counterpart Avram Grant must covet such certainty. Chelsea's boss does not only know whether he will be in charge at Stamford Bridge in August, he also has no idea whether the likes of Didier Drogba, Frank Lampard and Petr Cech will still be at the club.

The pressure generated by that situation may go some way to explaining the Israeli's uncharacteristic outburst this week about British referees being susceptible to being influenced with specific reference to Steve Bennett's handling of United's final league game, a 2-0 win over Wigan.

Ferguson has dismissed Grant's rant as an attempt to put pressure on the match officials for Wednesday, but there is no doubting the Chelsea manager's oft-expressed admiration for the United manager has given way to a spikier set of emotions in the build-up to a match he can ill afford to lose.

"I don't think any team has the advantage," Grant said of Wednesday's meeting. "We've played two times against them this season, we won two weeks ago and we lost at Old Trafford in my first game.

"The referee gave a red card, penalty and a goal - nothing was the right decision. I don't think they are better than us and in these games anything is possible."

Both managers will have full-strength squads to choose from with John Terry and Drogba both having recovered from injuries that briefly threatened their participation in club football's biggest match.

Ferguson's hardest decision will be to decide which of his loyal servants to leave out of the Champions League final squad.

He can pick only seven substitutes but that still means the likes of Darren Fletcher, John O'Shea and almost certainly club captain Gary Neville could find themselves dressed in a suit in Moscow. - AFP