2008 UEFA Champions League final
The 2008 UEFA Champions League final was a football match that took place on 21 May 2008 at the Luzhniki Stadium in Moscow, Russia, to determine the winner of the 2007–08 UEFA Champions League. It was contested by Manchester United and Chelsea, making it an all-English final for the first time in the history of the competition; it was only the third time that two clubs from the same country had contested the final, after 2000 and 2003. It was the first European Cup final played in Russia, and hence the easternmost final in the tournament's history. It also marked the 100th anniversary of Manchester United's first league triumph, the 50th anniversary of the Munich air disaster, and the 40th anniversary of United's first European Cup triumph in 1968. It was Manchester United's third European Cup final after 1968 and 1999, while it was Chelsea's first.
Manchester United won the match 6–5 on penalties, following a 1–1 draw after extra time. Cristiano Ronaldo opened the scoring for Manchester United in the 26th minute with a header from a cross by Wes Brown, but Frank Lampard equalised shortly before half-time. The second half and most of extra time passed without incident until Chelsea's Didier Drogba was sent off for slapping Nemanja Vidić four minutes from the end. In the penalty shoot-out, Ronaldo missed Manchester United's third kick, giving John Terry the chance to win the title for Chelsea, only for his shot to hit the post when he slipped as he was about to kick the ball. Edwin van der Sar then saved Nicolas Anelka's effort from Chelsea's seventh kick to secure Manchester United's third European Cup title.
More than 67,000 people watched the game in the stadium, along with more than 17.5 million television viewers in the United Kingdom and Ireland. In addition to prize money received from earlier in the competition, Manchester United received €7 million for winning the final, while Chelsea received €4 million. As winners, Manchester United went on to play in the 2008 UEFA Super Cup, losing 2–1 to 2007–08 UEFA Cup winners Zenit Saint Petersburg, and the 2008 FIFA Club World Cup, which they won after beating 2008 Copa Libertadores winners LDU Quito 1–0 in the final.
Background
Manchester United and Chelsea had played each other 150 times prior to the Champions League final, including 18 meetings in domestic cup competitions. Due to various historical restrictions regarding the number of teams from the same country entering European competitions, they had never met in Europe before. Manchester United held the upper hand in the teams' previous meetings, winning 65 times to Chelsea's 41, with 44 draws. Their cup record was equally good, winning 10 of their 18 meetings, with 4 draws and 4 Chelsea wins. However, honours were even in cup finals, with Manchester United having won the 1994 FA Cup final 4–0, while Chelsea won the 2007 FA Cup final 1–0, the last cup game between the two sides. Manchester United responded to defeat in the 2007 FA Cup Final by beating Chelsea in the 2007 FA Community Shield the following August, winning 3–0 on penalties after a 1–1 draw in normal time. They went on to claim their 17th league title at the end of the 2007–08 Premier League season, finishing two points ahead of Chelsea. Both teams went into the final game of the season level on points, but United were ahead of Chelsea because of their superior goal difference, meaning United's 2–0 win against Wigan Athletic on the final day made Chelsea's late draw with Bolton Wanderers irrelevant. In the two sides' league meetings that season, United won 2–0 at Old Trafford in Avram Grant's first game in charge of Chelsea on 23 September 2007, while Chelsea won 2–1 at Stamford Bridge in the return game on 26 April 2008.Because of the aforementioned restrictions on entry to UEFA competitions, Manchester United had only met English opposition in Europe twice before, while Chelsea had far more experience against English opposition, having played 12 matches against compatriot clubs, winning five, drawing five and losing just two. There had been two previous Champions League finals between teams from the same country: in 2000, when Real Madrid beat fellow Spanish side Valencia 3–0 at the Stade de France; and in 2003, when Italian sides Milan and Juventus played out a 0–0 draw at Old Trafford before Milan won 3–2 on penalties.
Both sides had a connection to the early history of European football; Chelsea were invited to take part in the inaugural European Cup in 1955–56 as champions of England, only to be denied entry by The Football League, allowing Manchester United to become the first English entrants in the competition the following season. In February 1958, eight Manchester United players were killed in the Munich air disaster, when the aeroplane carrying their team back from a match in Belgrade crashed while attempting to take off from a refuelling stop in Munich. Manager Matt Busby was seriously injured in the crash and almost died as a result, but he rebuilt the team, and in May 1968, Manchester United became the first English winners of the European Cup, beating Benfica 4–1 in the 1968 European Cup final. Chelsea won their first European trophy three years later, when they beat Real Madrid 2–1 in the 1971 European Cup Winners' Cup final replay after a 1–1 draw in the first match. Both Chelsea and Manchester United won that same competition during the 1990s – first Manchester United beat Barcelona 2–1 in the 1991 final, and then Chelsea beat VfB Stuttgart in the 1998 final. Manchester United then won their second European Cup the following year, beating Bayern Munich in the 1999 Champions League final.
Venue
The Luzhniki Stadium in Moscow was selected as the venue for the match at a meeting of the UEFA Executive Committee in Ljubljana, Slovenia, on 4 October 2006. The committee – who decided the venue for the 2009 final and the 2008 and 2009 UEFA Cup finals at the same meeting – based their decision on a number of factors, including stadium capacity, safety and security facilities, and accessibility. The other venues in contention were the Estadio Olímpico in Seville, the Olympiastadion in Berlin, Wembley Stadium in London, and the Stadio Olimpico in Rome, which was chosen to host the 2009 final.This was the easternmost final in the history of the European Cup/UEFA Champions League. It was the first time the competition's showpiece match had been played in Russia, although the Luzhniki Stadium had previously played host to the 1999 UEFA Cup final, in which Italian club Parma beat French side Marseille 3–0. Because of the difference in time zones, the match kicked off at 22:45 Moscow Time, making it the first Champions League final to start on one day and finish in the next.
Originally known as the Grand Arena of the Central Lenin Stadium, the venue opened in 1956 as a new national stadium for the Soviet Union national football team. In 1973, it served as the principal venue for the seventh Summer Universiade, before going on to perform the same function at the 1980 Summer Olympics. By this point, the stadium's capacity was 103,000; however, renovations in the mid-1990s reduced the capacity to just under 85,000. The stadium was given five-star status by UEFA in 1998, before hosting the UEFA Cup final the following year. To help the stadium cope with cold Russian winters, the grass pitch was replaced by an artificial FieldTurf surface in 2002. Although UEFA allowed matches in earlier rounds and European Championship qualifying to be played on the synthetic surface, they mandated that the Champions League final should be played on natural grass. The FieldTurf was removed after Russia's UEFA Euro 2008 qualifying match against England on 17 October, but the first grass pitch laid was deemed to be too bumpy. Another pitch was laid less than three weeks before the final at a cost of £160,000, using turf shipped in from Slovakia, but groundsman Matt Frost said, "I'm totally disappointed with the whole project and what we are presenting for the final." UEFA's director of communications, William Gaillard, said the pitch might not look as good as they had hoped to television audiences, but was confident that it would be fine to play on.
Route to the final
Manchester United
Manchester United were drawn in Group F along with Roma, Sporting CP and Dynamo Kyiv. United won their first five group games; they first travelled to Lisbon, where Cristiano Ronaldo's header secured a 1–0 win against his old club, Sporting. Next was another 1–0 win at home to Roma, followed by back-to-back four-goal victories over Dynamo Kyiv. United secured top spot in the group with a 2–1 win at home to Sporting in their fifth game. They travelled to Roma for the final group game, in which both teams were already guaranteed to progress; it finished as a 1–1 draw, with Gerard Piqué scoring his second goal for the club before Mancini's equaliser. United finished with 16 points, the most of all the group winners.In the first knockout round, United were drawn against Lyon. They drew the away leg 1–1, thanks to a late equaliser from Carlos Tevez, before winning the second leg 1–0 – Ronaldo scoring the only goal – to ensure a 2–1 aggregate victory and a place in the quarter-finals, where they were again drawn against Roma.
The quarter-final matches represented the fifth and sixth times these two clubs had met in Europe in just over 12 months; they had met at the same stage of the previous season's competition and then again in the group stage this season. United went to Rome and secured a 2–0 win with a first-half header from Ronaldo and a second-half goal tapped in by Wayne Rooney. United went on to secure the tie in the second leg with a 1–0 win, their record 11th consecutive home Champions League win.
The semi-final pitted United against Barcelona; the teams had not met since the group stage of the 1998–99 tournament, the last time United won it. The teams also had identical records going into the semi-final, each having won eight and drawn two of their 10 games, scoring 18 goals and conceding just five. The first leg at the Camp Nou saw United spend most of the game defending, while Barcelona tried to pass the ball around them. United were awarded a penalty in the first minute, but Ronaldo sent the ball wide, hitting the stanchion behind the goal. That was as close as either team got to a goal in the first leg and it ended 0–0. The second leg at Old Trafford was played at a higher tempo, and United won 1–0 thanks to a goal from Paul Scholes after 14 minutes. This result extended United's consecutive home win record in the Champions League to 12 and ensured that they reached the final unbeaten.
In reaching the final, United won nine and drew three of their 12 matches, dwarfing their record of four wins and six draws in the 10 games they took to reach the final in 1999. United scored 19 goals en route to the final, Ronaldo scoring seven of them, more than any other player.