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UEFA Super Cup: Manchester United's bid to return to summit of European football begins against Real Madrid

Can Manchester United show that they can still mix it with the elite of European football?

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Manchester United manager Jose Mourinho (L) and his Real Madrid counterpart Zinedine Zidane ahead of Wednesday's UEFA Super Cup 2017 clash
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In 2003, Real Madrid and Manchester United engaged in one of the most thrilling Champions League matches of all time as the Red Devils ran out 4-3 winners at Old Trafford even as Los Merengues won the match on aggregate (6-5).

The match had everything – end-to-end action; John O’Shea nutmegging Luis Figo; an astounding performance from Iker Casillas; a hat-trick from Brazilian legend Ronaldo who got a standing ovation from the home crowd; a brace from substitute David Beckham who would depart for Real at the end of the season and an astounded oligarch called Roman Abramovich in the stands who became convinced that he simply must own a football club.

Since then a lot of contrasting water have flowed under the bridge for the two clubs and they have had very different journeys in Europe.

Real Madrid finally completed their La Decima in 2014, beating cross-town rivals Atletico, and winning their first title since 2002, which was sealed by current head coach and original Galactico Zinedine Zidane’s magical volley.

 

Since then Real Madrid won consecutive European Cups on 2016 and 2017, becoming the first club to break the Big Ears jink and retain the trophy in its current format. Led by former Galactico Zinedine Zidane - who has won in his short one-and-half-year tenure two European Cups, a La Liga title, last year’s UEFA Super Cup and the Club World Cup -  Real Madrid have reinstalled themselves as the premier club in world football, maybe even a level above arch-rivals Barcelona and Bayern Munich.

Meanwhile, Manchester United’s journey has seen more downs than up, and even Sir Alex Ferguson would admit that the Red Devils had underperformed in Europe during his tenure.

Only when they adopted a more continental style of football in the late 2000s, aided by the tactically-astute Carlos Queiroz, eschewing their 4-4-2 gung-ho bravura, would they start performing consistently in Europe.

 

 A superlative side led by Cristiano Ronaldo finally led them to the summit of European football in 2008.  United reached the final in quick succession twice in the next three years, only to be thwarted by Guardiola’s Barcelona whose tiki-taka approach really came of age as the quartet of Messi-Xavi-Iniesta gave them two astonishing masterclasses.

However, things would change soon.

 Ronaldo would leave for a world-record transfer to Real Madrid to restart the Galacticos era and thinks turned even more sour in the post-Fergie era, as they consistently failed to either qualify or get past the group stage.

This is why the Super Cup against Real represents an opportunity for the Red Devils to send a message to Europe’s top teams. The task is simple – show you can still compete with Europe’s best.

 

In Mourinho they certainly have a manager who knows his way around the competition, having won it with Porto and Inter Milan. Nor do United have any excuses left. They have racked up a huge bill since Ferguson left, even though some of their purchases have to be questioned.

Mourinho’s team is an expensively assembled outfit consisting of new additions Romelu Lukaku (£75m), Nemanja Matic (£40m) and Victor Lindelof (£31m).

Add to that last season’s acquisitions like Paul Pogba, Henrikh Mkhitaryan and Eric Bailly; and the likes of David De Gea, Anthony Martial and Marcus Rashford and United have, at least on paper, one of the most talented sides in Europe. Mourinho, despite his protestations that United aren’t at the Real-Barca-Bayern level, knows that his side are capable of beating any opponent.

However, that would just be in the beginning because Mourinho knows that Ed Woodward and Manchester United board didn’t bring him to the club to simply come sixth or Europa League. The ultimate goal is to plot United’s ascendancy to the top of the European and English football and the journey to do that begins against the Kings of Europe in Macedonia.

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