The Spanish Inquisition 2

Manchester United's blueprint for success in Europe is similar to that used by the great AC Milan sides. Gabriele Marcotti explains why continuity of selection is so vital It's amazing what winning the Champions League can do. Last season, the English press waxed tragic in the run-up to Manchester United's encounters with both Inter Milan and Juventus.

The talk was all about "Italian giants" and "mighty this and that". You'd think Sir Alex Ferguson's boys were a bunch of teenage hubcap thieves from Govan getting ready to pit their wits against the combined intellectual might of Hercule Poirot, Sherlock Holmes, Perry Mason and the Mossad.

In other words, somebody locked in a padded cell with the English press would have been forgiven for thinking that Juventus and Inter were stone-crushing juggernauts, hoovering up European silverware and English champions in the process.

It's a good thing that United's players paid more attention to what Sir Alex tells them than what they read in the press. For the truth was rather different. Both Italian clubs were mired in nightmare seasons. Both would endure the sacking of their managers (in Inter's case, they would actually have four different bosses in a five-month spell) and both were as scared of Manchester United as the Red Devils supposedly were of them.

In fact, while Juventus and Inter might have had the edge tactically, the clubs were evenly matched in terms of technique and United had a distinct advantage in work rate, team spirit and commitment. As it happened, the Italians were duly dispatched and Manchester United went on to take the European crown.

Now, according to the press, every opponent they face is doomed before kick-off. Yet, apart from Bosnich in goal, it's essentially the same bunch of players as last year, with the odd Mickael Silvestre thrown in (at times, it seems, for comic relief).

So what has changed? Manchester United have slowly developed a group confidence which in the past has distinguished truly great teams from merely good ones. It's the kind of self-assurance which leads you to believe that you will win every time you step on to the pitch. It's the strength of character which allowed them to keep their heads in the first leg against Real Madrid, even while being outplayed for long periods in front of 93,000 opposing supporters baying for blood.

Real Madrid should have won that game. Instead, thanks to a couple of good saves by Mark Bosnich, and especially thanks to the inner strength and confidence of the entire squad, United got away unscathed. In fact, if Andy Cole's finishing hadn't been about as tidy and accurate as a drunk Dudley Moore attempting to circumcise a fruit fly with a chainsaw, they would have nailed the three points.

It's a testament to Sir Alex's work, but also to the ethos of the dressing room. The step from good team to winning team is small. The step from winning team to dynasty is huge and Man-chester United are definitely getting there.

The last club to turn squad unity into European domination was AC Milan in the late 1980s and early 1990s, under Arrigo Sacchi and Fabio Capello. The Rossoneri featured in six European Cups between 1988 and 1995 and note, this was in the ancient days, when you actually had to win something to make it.

They won three times, in 1988-89, 1989-90 and 1993-94. On two otheroccasions, 1992-93 and 1994-95, they were losing finalists, beaten by a single goal both times. And the sixth and final time, in 1990-91, they went out in the quarter-final against Marseille, in the famous match where the Stade Velodrome lights were switched off and club vice-president Adriano Galliani refused to let the team take the field. They were banned from Europe the next year as a result.

A superficial reading of those great Milan teams would show that they won because they collected pricey inter-national superstars the way Bill Gates collects email flames from frustrated computer nerds.

While it is true that the likes of Dejan Savicevic, Marcel Desailly and Zvonimir Boban made hefty contributions, the true strength of the team rested in its foundations, midfield and defence. Six elevenths (defenders Mauro Tassotti, Alessandro Costacurta, Franco Baresi and Paolo Maldini and midfielders Alberigo Evani and Roberto Donadoni) of the team that beat Steaua Bucharest 4-0 to win the European Cup in 1989 were still key ingredients in the Milan mix six seasons later, when they lost the 1994-95 European Cup final to Ajax, 1-0.

It's also a fair bet that the legendary Marco van Basten would still have been around if he hadn't been forced to retire through injury in 1993. Of the others, Dutch star Frank Rijkaard had only left Milan the year before, after five seasons at the San Siro and midfield general Demetrio Albertini, a product of the youth system, broke into the first team in 1990 and already had five years under his belt at that point.

Make no mistake about it, Milan's success (in addition to their three European titles, between 1987 and 1996 they also won five Italian titles, three European Supercups and two World Club Championships), was built on a strong backbone of quality players who had grown up and worked together for years.

Sound familiar? It's pretty much what Sir Alex is working with at Old Trafford. Nine of Manchester United's key players have been together in the first-team for at least five years: David Beckham, Gary Neville, Phil Neville, Roy Keane, Ryan Giggs, Andy Cole, Denis Irwin, Nicky Butt and Paul Scholes. Indeed, most of United's squad have been together for so long that, if they were women, you would expect their menstrual cycles to be synchronised perfectly by now.

This kind of common experi-ence is simply invaluable. Compare that to Real Madrid, where only three players - striker Raul, midfielder Fernando Redondo and defender Fernando Hierro - have been together for five seasons. Take a quick look at some of the other clubs still in the running for the European crown: Chelsea have two (Dan Petrescu and Dennis Wise), Barcelona four (Sergi, Abelardo, Luis Figo and Pep Guardiola), Lazio three (Alessandro Nesta, Luca Marchegiani and Paolo Negro).

Simply put, no one can match United in terms of shared experience. This is a club that has grown together, learning year after year through all the failures and disappointments of Ferguson's European campaigns prior to last season.

"When you play together for that long, you develop a kind of extra- sensory perception when it comes to your team-mates," says Costacurta, now in his 14th season at Milan.

"I could sense where Maldini and Baresi were. I knew how they would move, where they would go, what they would do ahead of time. When you can do that, you gain perhaps half a second, but often that's enough to anticipate situations, so it's a huge edge.

"From what I can tell, Manchester United has that as well," he adds. "The synchronicity of their movement, especially in midfield between Giggs, Keane and Beckham is just astounding. That's the result of a lot of hard work by the manager, but also of many years together." The benefits of playing together for so long go well beyond that, however," explains Costacurta.

"We grew up together, most of us won our first trophies together and suffered our worst defeats together," he says. "Over time we came to believe that if we simply stuck to our game plan we would never lose. One look at Maldini or Donadoni would give me the strength to persevere in a difficult moment."

Which is pretty much what happened at the Bernabeu. When things got hairy, the team remained confident and simply made its game plan work. This United team still has a long way to go before it can match those Milan squads in terms of continental success. But the crucial ingredients are all there.

Perhaps Sir Alex might want to borrow a phrase from Milan chairman Silvio Berlusconi. After the Rossoneri won the European Cup in 1988- 89 he said: "It's up to you, this title can be the first of many. You are in the history books. Now you owe it to yourselves to become the stuff of legends."

United secured their place in history last season. Whether or not they can reach legendary status like those Milan teams remains to be seen, but they are certainly on their way.

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