CL Final - How far are we from reaching this level of football?

In Rainbows said:
We do know how we would've done because it actually happened. We were knocked out in the group stages.
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Earlier in the season. The team that turned up against pool and city were obviously much better than some of the early season performances.
 
Not about distance but time. I would personally try to hire the best people for each position like INEOS planned to do. Might even nick people who has done it from clubs like real, barca, and other frequent CL semi participants. Then when the structure is in place, it is just the matter of time. Citeh success started from Txixi. It all began from there. Without the correct people running the club then it will never happen.
 
Winning a PL is more difficult. 38 games a season and the consistency required. In this context we are very far away from City, Arsenal and Liverpool.

In cup competition, luck is very important including who we draw against especially in knock out stages. The critical moments in games that go your way, referee and etc.

I consider City the best team in the world now and we beat them in FA Cup final, a one off match.

We would have beaten Dortmund, watching the game I felt RM was extremely lucky to win the CL.
 
Raoul said:
Earlier in the season. The team that turned up against pool and city were obviously much better than some of the early season performances.
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Yeah, but it is still much harder to do it when you have 3 two legged ties. One off matches can have any result. Even the CL can have flukes don't get me wrong, but it's much harder than doing the FA Cup which are made up of just one off matches.
 
We will get there by the time Lisan Al Ghaib has defeated the Imperium.
 
Given our financial ability, 2-3 years if the clubs hierarchy are flawless.
 
The same chance that Copenhagen, Galatasaray, Fulham, Bournemouth, Coventry, Brentford have under this current Head Coach.
 
I yearn for the day we conquer Europe like Madrid have done and that should be the long term goal of the club, not just the domestic side but Europe.

We have the tools, we have the greatest market potential of all clubs in the world bar maybe Madrid itself and if we can utilise that to our advantage it should absolutely be possible.

It's embarrassing for a league to claim it's the best while having such middling performance continentally in proportion to its financial wherewithal.

Get a new top class stadium, build the most extensive talent scouting operation in the world, create the most advanced training facilities in the world and the rest should fall in place, once you get that first victory while having a very solid core with right age profile the rest will follow.
 
It was a really poor quality final which makes it even more embarrassing for the PL this season and their showing in Europe.
 
We barely manage to qualify for the competition itself in consecutive seasons. Without any bumps in the road, I'd say 4 seasons at least for the final.
 
Not too far really, only a few things need to change:

  • New manager.
  • Some money to buy players.
  • Replace entire squad apart from maybe 6 players.
  • Figure out how to stop players being injured constantly.

Do this and we're in with a good chance!
 
Very far.

One thing you need in the CL, is pedigree. i.e experience of making it out of the group stages, doing well in the KO rounds, etc. Since Fergie retired, I think we've only made it out of the groups a handful of times. These days, we can't even qualify for the CL regularly, let alone get out of the group stages.
 
Not as far as people think but getting a squad right is a precarious thing. This season we thought we could rely on rashford for some goals so strengthened elsewhere only to find rashford was rubbish. Injuries/age profiles etc. It all has to be well balanced. Plenty of not top level sides have gotten near in recent years so it's not a case of needing the absolute best. I think 3 really top quality starters and some decent depth would get us close provided all the other stuff goes right with form/fitness/no off field chaos. For the blank spaces here insert your own top choice

Onana, Dalot, Cb, Martinez, Shaw, DM, Mainoo, Fernandes, RF, Hojlund, Garnacho

Its a strong team IF recruitment is right. 3 top players will improve all the others. Would leave a reasonably strong set of options from bench too.
 
SilentWitness said:
It was a really poor quality final which makes it even more embarrassing for the PL this season and their showing in Europe.
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I'm not saying it's all due to the scheduling but surely it's not a insignificant contributor, league cup games should probably all be completely ignored by the club's hoping to compete in Europe, also games should preferably be scheduled in a way that as to allow for a certain amount of rest between the important knock out games, Italian, Spanish and German teams all play fewer games compared to English ones not to mention the holiday rest they'll get.
 
MrMarcello said:
Man will step on Mars before this current United setup sniff a CL Final.

Things can change though.
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NASA's plan for that is late 2030's, early 2040's.

I don't think it's quite that bad for us. If INEOS does this right, we could be here in 3 seasons time with the right management and recruitment.
 
The last time we were in a Champion’s League final, I was 12.

So yeah, a very long time. Similarly, we last won the Premier League when I was 14. We’ll have to wait a long time for that to happen again I feel. Hopefully we can achieve both by the end of the decade.
 


fecking hell I wish we had this mentality (and quality obviously) at United. You just have to admire them.
 
As someone already said we are at least 2 years, but probably be a lot more with a real chance to win it. Depends on a lot of factors and maybe the biggest the luck of the draw in the early stages. At the moment there is nothing to suggest we will be winning it anytime soon, but a new manager, a few more quality players and a great deal of luck; who knows?
 
Raoul said:
We’re closer than most think we are. ETH is clearly a good cup manager and the level we saw today was basically the same level as the FA Cup final. So it wouldn’t be a stretch to believe a healthy United under ETH could make or even win a final, especially as he’s nearly gotten there before with a significantly lesser side.
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Yep, this is closer to reality than any comparison to Bournemouth
 
Raoul said:
We’re closer than most think we are. ETH is clearly a good cup manager and the level we saw today was basically the same level as the FA Cup final. So it wouldn’t be a stretch to believe a healthy United under ETH could make or even win a final, especially as he’s nearly gotten there before with a significantly lesser side.
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It was one of his selling points for me and while I admit he's done admirably in domestic cups it's been hit and miss in Europe aside from those two games against barca.

Let's see how he does in Europe this time around if he's given that extra season of course.
 
We are miles away, good manager and few good players. And people who are saying Dormund is nothing special, they qualified from group of death while we are crashed from probably easiest one.

They would whipe flour with us in 2 legs.
 
Forget comparisons to Real. The OP asked about the CL Final. Dortmund made it to the CL final and they are nothing all that special. We’re off the pace from Dortmund but with better management we’re not that far off from Dortmund, but we’re still miles away from being a favorite to make it to the CF Final.
 
SirAF said:


fecking hell I wish we had this mentality (and quality obviously) at United. You just have to admire them.
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Used to

Would always hear it when we won the league or a major trophy that the next day United would immediately start planning for how they would win the next one

Now we take 3 months of the summer deciding whether or not to sack the manager
 
Put it this way the only top team we’ve beaten in a CL knockout phase since 2011 is PSG in 2019 where we lucked out massively.

History tells us we are nowhere near as the first time we face a good side we get knocked out, that’s even if we’re able to progress beyond the group stage.
 
SirAF said:


fecking hell I wish we had this mentality (and quality obviously) at United. You just have to admire them.
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I think they are under immense pressure from their core fans all the time for success. The Spanish/Madrid residents i mean. I remember a game long back against Sevilla when Julio Baptista and Co tore RM a new one. The whistling and white kerchief waving was a shock for me. That's just an example of how demanding they are. It drives the team and management to success.
 
Juicy Juiced said:
We are miles away, good manager and few good players. And people who are saying Dormund is nothing special, they qualified from group of death while we are crashed from probably easiest one.

They would whipe flour with us in 2 legs.
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I know we must always see things the most negative way possible but the CL group stages were partly just a comedy of errors and partly us being not good enough. I don’t think it is that hard to imagine us finishing that group stage with 12pts in an alternate reality. We had leads and threw them away, bizarre Rashford red card, Casemiro red card, Onana gaffes.

Sometimes football just goes that way. We were as competitive with Bayern as Arsenal were.
 
Under SAF, when we had our best chances, I don't think our ownership ever had the burning ambition to be at the very top of European football every year. It costs too much.
 
I'm not sure the level was that high in the CL knockout stage this season.

Our FA Cup final performance was a better performance than what most teams produced in the CL knockout stage this season, so the answer to your question is not very far at all.

Our 20/21 and 22/23 teams were also easily good enough for a deeper CL run if the draw was somewhat favorable as well. We messed it up for ourselves under Ole, but we were top of our group after 4 games, with a convincing win against PSG in Paris, and a 5-0 win vs Leipzig at home. Last season under ten Hag, we were the better team over two legs and deservedly knocked out La Liga champions Barcelona in the Europa League, who finished 10 points ahead this Real Madrid side (bar Bellingham) over 38 games. We also beat City, Arsenal, Liverpool and Spurs at home in the league, and as ETH said before the 2023 FA Cup final, we were probably the team most likely to stop City in their treble-winning season and we performed better against them than even Arsenal, Bayern or Madrid that season.

So yeah, we're a few years away from being title contenders in the Premier League, but with this pragmatic approach that Ole and ten Hag have both used up until this season (except these last few games since the Arsenal game), we're already a pretty decent cup team, and I don't believe the likes of Atletico, Dortmund, PSG and Barcelona were anything special in the CL this season, if you compare them to our 22/23 team, for example.
 
Juicy Juiced said:
We are miles away, good manager and few good players. And people who are saying Dormund is nothing special, they qualified from group of death while we are crashed from probably easiest one.

They would whipe flour with us in 2 legs.
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If you truly believe that, you're just following casual narratives based on surface-level knowledge, without any real contextualization or delving deeper into things.

Our football has been awful for 90% of the season, but when we were set up well (last few games, some Carabao games, and actually Galatasaray and CPH away in the CL come to mind), we showed that we're still as good as our 22/23 side, except with Onana, Hojlund, and Mainoo added to the team, whilst only losing De Gea and Fred in exchange. ETH really messed up the whole season by being stubborn and not sticking to last year's pragmatic approach, but when he did, we were a good side. Dortmund aren't better than that team. In fact, I'd say they're definitely worse than that team.
 
RedBanker said:
I think they are under immense pressure from their core fans all the time for success. The Spanish/Madrid residents i mean. I remember a game long back against Sevilla when Julio Baptista and Co tore RM a new one. The whistling and white kerchief waving was a shock for me. That's just an example of how demanding they are. It drives the team and management to success.
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Totally agree, we are far too soft on our players, even though it's "our" game we lack that kind of passion from supporters, we should embarrass them more, make them feel ashamed when they have a poor performance.
 
The level of the final wasn’t that high to be frank.

Dortmund played well to get to semi-final and should have stranded there.

Madrid have that confidence and quality that allows them to win games that they are losing. Like fecking Italian teams.
 
I'd expect progress within the next two years, possibly start challenging by 2027. There's alot of factors at play, bits of luck etc. we are clearly a fairly capable squad so the new signings we make will be very important.
 
People are confusing our one off best results with our actual performance level throughout the season. We're miles off.
 
Von Mistelroum said:
Not too far really, only a few things need to change:

  • New manager.
  • Some money to buy players.
  • Replace entire squad apart from maybe 6 players.
  • Figure out how to stop players being injured constantly.

Do this and we're in with a good chance!
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Or keep the manager since he's obviously pretty good at cups, and focus on a couple of quality transfers and keeping the squad healthy next year.
 
Raoul said:
Or keep the manager since he's obviously pretty good at cups, and focus on a couple of quality transfers and keeping the squad healthy next year.
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How would keeping the manager that brought us our worst ever Champions League campaign be any help?
 
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