2009 UEFA Champions League Final

The 2009 UEFA Champions League Final was played on 27 May 2009 at the Stadio Olimpico in Rome, Italy. The match determined the winners of the 2008-09 season of the UEFA Champions League, a tournament for the top football clubs in Europe. The match was won by Barcelona of Spain, who beat England's Manchester United 2-0. Samuel Eto'o opened the scoring in the 10th minute, and Lionel Messi added another goal 20 minutes from the end to earn Barcelona an historic treble of La Liga, the Copa del Rey and the Champions League, a feat never before achieved by a Spanish club.
==Background==
Manchester United and Barcelona had previously faced each other nine times in European competitions: three times in the UEFA Cup Winners' Cup and six times in the UEFA Champions League. Of those nine matches, Manchester United had recorded three wins to Barcelona's two, with the remaining four matches finishing in draws. The only time that the two teams met in a final came in 1991, when they contested the 1991 Cup Winners' Cup final. The first meeting between the two sides came in the third round of the 1983-84 Cup Winners' Cup; Barcelona won the first leg at the Camp Nou 2-0, but Manchester United won the return leg 3-0 at Old Trafford to reach the semi-finals. That result marked Manchester United's biggest win over Barcelona; Barcelona's biggest win was a 4-0 home victory in the group stage of the 1994-95 Champions League. The most recent meeting between the teams came in the semi-finals of the 2007-08 Champions League, when United held Barcelona to a 0-0 draw at the Camp Nou before beating them 1-0 at Old Trafford.
Both teams went into the match as the champions of their respective countries - the first time that the final had been contested by domestic champions since 1999, when Manchester United beat Bayern Munich 2-1 at Barcelona's home, the Camp Nou - both winning with games to spare. Manchester United won their 11th Premier League title with a 0-0 draw at home to Arsenal on 16 May, while Barcelona were confirmed as La Liga champions for the first time in three years when Real Madrid lost to Villarreal on the same day. Both Manchester United and Barcelona were also looking for another Champions League title to cap a season in which they had won multiple trophies: Manchester United had already won four out of a possible seven trophies in 2008-09 and were playing for the possibility of becoming the third team to retain the European Double (the domestic league and the European Cup), while Barcelona were aiming to become the first Spanish club to win a Treble of La Liga, the Copa del Rey and the UEFA Champions League.
The Stadio Olimpico in Rome had hosted three European Cup finals before 2009: the 1977 and 1984 finals, both of which were won by Liverpool - Liverpool beat Borussia Mönchengladbach 3-1 in 1977 before beating home side Roma 4-2 on penalties after the match finished 1-1 after extra time; the most recent final to be held at the Stadio Olimpico was the 1996 final, which Juventus also won 4-2 on penalties after a 1-1 draw with Ajax.
The construction of the stadium was commissioned by Italian dictator Benito Mussolini in the mid-1930s as the centrepiece of a new sports complex in the city, to be named Foro Mussolini. After the Second World War, the complex was renamed Foro Italico and the stadium was radically redesigned as a 54,000-capacity arena for the 1960 Summer Olympics. After hosting the 1987 World Athletics Championships, the stadium was redeveloped in time for the 1990 FIFA World Cup, at which West Germany's 1-0 win over Argentina in the final was played there. The stadium's most recent renovation, in 2008, increased its capacity to 72,689.
==Road to Rome==
Barcelona 	Barcelona	Barcelona 	Round 	Manchester United	Manchester United	Manchester United	 	
Opponent 	Result 	Legs 	Qualifying phase 	Opponent 	Result 	Legs 	 	
Wisła Kraków 	4-1 	4-0 home; 0-1 away	Third qualifying round	N/A 	N/A 	N/A 	 	
{| class="wikitable" style="text-align: center;"	
{| class="wikitable" style="text-align: center;"	
{| class="wikitable" style="text-align: center;"	 	 	 	 	 	
Team 	 	 	 	 	 	 	 	
Barcelona 	6 	4 	1 	1 	18 	8 	+10 	13
Sporting CP 	6 	4 	0 	2 	8 	8 	0 	12
Shakhtar Donetsk	6 	3 	0 	3 	11 	7 	+4 	9
Basel 	6 	0 	1 	5 	2 	16 	−14	1
===Match details===
{| style="font-size: 90%" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0"	BARCELONA: 	BARCELONA: 	BARCELONA: 	BARCELONA:
 	 	 	 	
GK 	1 	Víctor Valdés 	 	
RB 	5 	Carles Puyol (c) 	 	
CB 	24 	Yaya Touré 	 	
CB 	3 	Gerard Piqué 	 	
LB 	16 	Sylvinho 	 	
DM 	28 	Sergio Busquets 	 	
CM 	6 	Xavi 	 	
CM 	8 	Andrés Iniesta 	 	
RW 	10 	Lionel Messi 	 	
LW 	14 	Thierry Henry 	 	
CF 	9 	Samuel Eto'o 	 	
Substitutes: 	Substitutes: 	Substitutes: 	 	
GK 	13 	José Manuel Pinto	 	
DF 	2 	Martín Cáceres 	 	
DF 	46 	Marc Muniesa 	 	
MF 	15 	Seydou Keita 	 	
FW 	7 	Eiður Guðjohnsen 	 	
FW 	11 	Bojan Krkić 	 	
FW 	27 	Pedro Rodríguez 	 	
Manager: 	Manager: 	Manager: 	 	
Josep Guardiola	Josep Guardiola	Josep Guardiola 	Josep Guardiola	
UEFA Man of the Match:
 Xavi
Fans' Man of the Match:
 Lionel Messi
Assistant referees:
 Matthias Arnet
 Francesco Buragina
Fourth official:
 Claudio Circhetta
===Statistics===
;First half
 	Barcelona	Manchester United
Goals scored 	1 	0
Total shots 	4 	8
Shots on target	1 	1
Ball possession	54% 	46%
Corner kicks 	3 	2
Fouls committed	3 	3
Offsides 	0 	2
Yellow cards 	1 	0
Red cards 	0 	0
;Second half
 	Barcelona	Manchester United
Goals scored 	1 	0
Total shots 	7 	4
Shots on target	7 	1
Ball possession	48% 	52%
Corner kicks 	1 	5
Fouls committed	4 	7
Offsides 	2 	3
Yellow cards 	0 	3
Red cards 	0 	0
;Overall
 	Barcelona	Manchester United
Goals scored 	2 	0
Total shots 	11 	12
Shots on target	8 	2
Ball possession	51% 	49%
Corner kicks 	4 	7
Fouls committed	7 	10
Offsides 	2 	5
Yellow cards 	1 	3
Red cards 	0 	0
Final2009