Rio Ferdinand explains why he disagreed with Sir Alex Ferguson’s approach tactic when Barcelona defeated Manchester United in the 2011 Champions League.
“The plan was to really to go and meet them high,” Ferdinand revealed.
“Meet them, press them high and try and win the ball early and then obviously go for the jugular.”
“We done that, to be fair, with the goal we scored, but in the main we didn’t have the ball in the midfield area.
“This area is key in big games, you need to dominate that area and then you’ve got a good chance of winning it. And they outnumbered us.”
Ferdinand also said that he had voiced his concerns to Ferguson over the approach of playing with two midfielders against Barcelona’s strong centre.
“They’d done us in Rome (in the 2009 final), and they’d probably got three in that area – Messi, Xavi and Iniesta – three of probably the top six players in the world in that time.”
“So three of the top six players in the world in that area, and they were playing against two players (Carrick and Giggs) in there.”
“Me and Nemanja Vidic used to speak a lot about stuff like this, and I just thought we were going to get outnumbered in midfield,” he further told.
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