Bayern had “just” two themselves in the same time period, while the others had 3. Not that much in it.
Ralf Rangnick | ex-interim manager | does anyone rate him?
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You sure about that?
So 7 semi finals in 19 years, that’s a semi final every 2,7 seasons. Considering how good and financially strong top clubs in Europe were in that period I don’t see any underachievement.
Compared to our domestic record in the same period of course, but otherwise it is a very decent European record.
Compared to our domestic record in the same period of course, but otherwise it is a very decent European record.
I addressed this. He had a furry of 3 finals in the last 4 years but there was a patch in between of nothingness.
SAF definitely underperformed in Europe, I am surprised this is debated.
What is the right answer? Edit - not 20 titles but focusing more on only 2 CLs
Well we have won it 3 times.
My post is about the time during SAF and how he could have done more in Europe.
Sir Alex has only won the Champions League twice
Fair enough, it’s just when you said “across 20 titles” and we’ve won 20 titles throughout our league history.
Was that an underachievement in europe or was it down to the team just not being good enough?
Remember we did a full rebuild from about 2002 - 2006. The team in that period was struggling a bit in the league never mind champs league.
Yeah that was my mistake
Some of the sides that knocked us out weren't better than us. It happened way too much.
Ferguson said in one of his books that he reckons he should have won it five times, the CL that is.
Even Ferguson admitted that we should have done better in Europe. That's why he brought Queiroz back in, to shift the focus on the defensive organization, which was the norm back then. He wanted that second CL title. I believe he mentioned afterwards that he never saw this as anything more than a means to an end because he despised that type of football. Nevertheless, he deemed the change necessary.
And he was right. Since the treble, we won only three knock-out ties in 8 years: La Coruna (2002), Lille and Roma (2007). That's plain bad, there's no other way to put it.
Where he got unlucky was that when he finally had the best side in the world, Pep and his Barça happened.
Why ignore the 3 finals in the last 4 years? And it wasn’t in his last 4 years anyway.
But even if you take the years out for whatever reason when he started reaching finals you know in 2007/08, even before that it was 4 semis in 13 years, still not bad.
Between 2004 - 2006 we weren’t even good enough to compete in the PL, let alone in Europe. And while on some occasions we should have beaten our opponent as they were inferior, on other occasions we went out to the eventual winner, this happens.
But whatever you need to invent to defend Ralf … your last few posts have been hilarious to read.
Well yeah a handful of games we should have won but that's cup football at a high level for you. It's happening to Pep at City every season.
On the flip side I'd say the 95-99 period was an overachievement. We didn't start playing in the tournament till 93/94 and with the foreigner rule in place. Five years later we're winning it with an almost entirely new line up. A lot of the players very young. That's some going.
If Fergie wins those two Barca finals would you call his record an underachievement?
Im not ignoring it. I addressed it. I said he did well at the end but underperformed generally.
Im not defending Ralf, I am pointing to the fact that this caretaker role is a poisoned chalice for anyone. Ralf is far from proven to be in this role but thats not what I am debating.
Again, read posts better.
No, but he didnt and he had great squads over the 2000s that he underachieved with.
For what its worth I don't think he underachieved at the end.
SAF will always say he should have done better, that‘s how he is. No one said he overachieved in Europe, but neither did he underachieve. If he did, then more or less all other clubs / managers did as well, as in the same period only RM, Barca and Milan won 1 more CL than us.
But a lot of teams have bad periods. RM were knocked out 6 times in a row in the last 16 before Jose joined them and stabilized their defence.
Also with Queiroz joining initially we got worse in Europe (including our games in 2002/03 against RM), then didn’t even qualify from the group stages in one season and he left in the summer of 2008.
SAF did great in the CL, he had to battle the 5 foreigner rule in the 90s along with financially stronger Italian clubs, and then had a rebuild in the mid 00s. Outside of that he has performed very well.
Overall, he didn't underachieve. But for that to happen, he had to adjust. Real Madrid have also won CL titles when they finished 5th in La Liga, or 15 points behind Valverde's Barcelona. Chelsea have done the same, Liverpool too. The 8-year barren spell i mentioned, from 2000 up till 2007, includes the peak of the class '92 and two more title winning sides. We could have done better. We went through rebuilding periods, true enough, but the basis of a good team was always there and we never lacked personalities back then. Thankfully, we performed better afterwards.
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We were bad between 2000 and 2006 but I assume we would have won a couple of more knock out ties if they didn’t have this awful 2nd group stage for four years. They only introduced round of 16 in that season we went out to Porto. We should have done better against Porto and Leverkusen in 2002, but apart from that the other teams who knocked us out in that period were better than us.
We changed our style in Europe after the 2006/07 Milan games and after beating us Ancelotti and Milan players said that they enjoy playing us as we play football as opposed to Liverpool who just stop you from playing. Obviously we all knew what they actually meant was we were naive.
I think the biggest is that 1999 team. Basically between 1996/97 to 2002/03, that 7 year span, we won it once, lost as semi finalists 2 other times, lost as quarter finalists 4 other times. That is arguably our best ever side, minor changes every year but it shouldn't have failed at the QF stage so frequently. That side should have something like 2 wins, 3 finals, 2 semi final defeats and 2 quarter final defeats.
We were unlucky that our greatest team was contemporary to Pep's Barca who are arguably the best team ever.
No shame in losing two finals against them.
That wasn't the focus on my post.
You said Ralf has more knowledge in football than Ancelotti
I honestly don’t want to ignore you as it’s comedy relief to read your posts…
The Caf has gone mad…
‘People are literally criticizing the greatest manager of all time to defend Ralf Rangnick.
‘People are literally criticizing the greatest manager of all time to defend Ralf Rangnick.
I don’t want to be rude but how old are you?
How many other English sides won it in Fergie’s time? No one got close in the 90s, Wenger got to one final in his whole time at Arsenal, Jose never got close at Chelsea.
No surprise that both the wins for Liverpool and Chelsea came as the Premier League really started to take over financially. This wasn’t the case in the 90’s as Serie A was richer and better. Not just tactically, their teams were incredible man for man.
Others have pointed out the foreigner rule and the fact we weren’t even in the Champions League till 93. You’ve forgotten about Rotterdam which was a big deal for United and English football after the European ban.
If you’re talking about the mid 2000s, we just weren’t very good and were never going to win as we couldn’t get near the Premier League either. Realistically we could have had another 1-2 titles around 99 or if Messi wasn’t at Barca, but it is what it is.
Anyway, what was the point? Oh yeah counter attacking football. This wasn’t the reason for us “only” winning two European cups.
No I didn't. Dont make things up and learn how to read.You said Ralf has more knowledge in football than Ancelotti
I honestly don’t want to ignore you as it’s comedy relief to read your posts…
Im 32. No English team dominated the league as much as Ferguson did either. Its a redundant point you're making.
No it’s not. Fergie won the title 13 times in 26 seasons. So that means there was 13 times where another English team was better than United. Between them all they only managed the same amount (two). It makes no difference if it was one team or several that made up the other 13 title wins.
What does this have to do with underperforming in Europe? He was in the top 3 clubs of England in most of his time.
And yet he had exits to Dortmund, Monaco, Porto, Benfica among others.
I’m not sure what you’re not getting. All the other teams in the top 3 over these time periods went out to similar level teams at times. Why would United be expected to perform better than these teams in seasons where they couldn’t even win the domestic league, just because they were sustained in the top 4 over a longer period of time.
Have a look at Arsenal’s Champions League record? They had more dominant teams than ours at times in the late 90s and early 2000s. Also a manager that wasn’t playing counter attacking football, yet faired much worse.
Also, two of those teams you mention won the tournament those years. The Monaco one was disappointing and the 2005 team never had a hope of winning the tournament anyway.
United were the mainstay at in the league. Arsenal had a period, Chelsea had one too and so did City. But United were the top or just off the top with title challenges for most of his tenure which lasted decades.
Arsenal got to a CL final, Chelsea went all the way. But they didn't have as many as 20 years as being one of the top sides in Europe.
Look you can disagree if you want but my opinion is certainly commonly shared in that Ferguson could have done better in Europe with the talent at his disposal. There were a few teams he played that he had no right exiting too. That may be justifiable for Arsenal some seasons when they are a surprise factor for Europe and not getting the best talent around but when its United breaking the bank for the likes of Ferdinand, Rooney, Veron etc.. The pressure for advancing into the elite is on moreso.
If I am not mistaken this was a key reason for hiring CQ as the assistant manager. His knowledge of continental gameplay was important to SAF who needed help in reading that side.
96/97 the class of '92 were only about 21 years old weren't they? They'd only been in the team a year or something. The club hadn't won the European Cup for 30 years. I think it was pretty impressive they managed to get as far as a semi that year. An overachievement.
Even '99 was possibly an overachievement.
The three years after '99 were a letdown in Europe but the problem was recruitment. It was rubbish. That squad was already thin. Losing Schmeichel and replacing him badly. Effectively losing Johnsen and Blomqvist through injury, not replacing them.
But then I thought the team that got to the second Barca final overachieved. It wasn't great. Not a patch on '99 or 2008.
Anyway, I'm derailing. But I think it was more bad luck than underachievement that stopped Fergie picking up 4 or 5.
Yeah I should probably just leave this, as this sentence shows you’re not understanding what I am saying.
Any team is going to have bad results if you’re looking over a period of 20 years. See City right now as an obvious example. That’s cup football. We weren’t outspending other teams in Europe during that period like you seem to think and had large parts of that 20 years where we couldn’t compete with the best in Europe regardless of tactics.
Either way, I’m with you that we could have had another title with that 99 team for sure, it doesn’t necessarily mean we under performed.
Im understanding what you're saying. I just disagree with it.
Summer after '99 we signed Bosnich, Silvestre and Fortune. We lost Schmeichel and through injury Johnsen and Blomqvist. York started to lose his way.
We probably did need a tactical tweek but it was ways going to be tough to win another when you recruit like that. That was Fergie's biggest mistake. Not underachieving but not maintaining the quality of that '99 team for longer. It immediately dropped a level.
The text I bolded said otherwise
At no point did I say Arsenal or Chelsea’s performance should be comparable to ours individually over the long term.It’s quite clear to me that English teams couldn’t compete at the very top in Europe Until the late 90s due to the quality of other leagues. Arsenal had similarly dominant teams between 1997 till 2003 and had similarly disappointing results, despite not playing counter attacking football. Once the money started flowing in the Premier League, these results faded completely against weaker teams.
Either way, thread officially de railed and I’m not coming back till after we draw 0-0 against Norwich
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