'The one thing I've learned is that this team never lie down'
Wayne Rooney on United's Milan challenge
After a vintage European contest between Man-chester United and Milan last week was followed by what will be perceived as a more typically British one at Stamford Bridge the next night - shades of the Lord Mayor's Show and what comes after it - there can be little doubt which second instalment the football world is looking forward to more. Liverpool's manager Rafa Benitez predicted in these pages last Sunday of his team's tie with Chelsea: "I don't think you will see a lot of goals." Sir Alex Ferguson has rarely been known to say the same about any game involving United over the past 20 years, and will not do so of the return leg against Milan, which the English side start with a 3-2 advantage.
Adding 40 goals in 20 cup ties this season to their formidable League tally means that they will finish the season with a higher total than any Premiership side for many years. By Thursday morning it may be that few, if any of them, will look more important than the pair that Wayne Rooney contrived during the second half at Old Trafford last Tuesday, giving him four in three Champions' League games after an unaccountably long barren spell in Europe.
"According to you guys, I have been suffering a goal drought all season," he was able to tell journalists with a gentle smile. "Now I have bettered my goals tally for last season and the season before, so I am feeling good. Sometimes if you are not scoring and it affects the result, then of course it does bother you, but in previous games when I haven't scored we have won anyway so I've not really been too bothered."
Nor has he needed to be when Cristiano Ronaldo has been hitting the net so frequently, with the result that both young men should collect on wagers with Ferguson concerning their number of goals this season.
The manager has made the point that compared with two seasons ago, when United could not score once in three hours against Milan, his team have grown up fast, which Rooney endorses: "When we went to Milan two years ago the likes of myself, Cristiano, Darren Fletcher, we were young lads then, boys if you like. Playing against Milan away, it is difficult for anyone, coming up against the likes of [Paolo] Maldini and [Alessandro] Nesta.
"Now we have grown up as a team, we have become men if you like, we have matured as a team but more importantly we have now become more clinical. For me personally I feel more at home on this stage now. I feel I have grown up over the past two years. I think as well that for the last two years, most of the team has stayed the same and we now know each other's game really well. The one thing I have learned during that time is this team never lie down, we are never beaten and that is what we will take to Milan."
Crucially, they will also take a one-goal lead, leaving the tie enticingly balanced given that the Italians have Kaka's two superb away goals to their name. With all United's defensive problems, even Ferguson admits there is "every chance" they will concede again, adding: "We have to score and we will be going there with an attitude to score."
The away record has been poor in Europe, with only this season's 1-0 victories at Benfica and Lille in the last 12 games. Ferguson is relying on those games and memories of one great triumph on Italian soil to inspire his men: "In 1999 we had to go to Juventus and win there. We have to step up a gear now. We got two winning results at Benfica and Lille without being brilliant, now we have to really play well in Milan and we have to have the goal threat."
He possesses that in Rooney and Ronaldo, Ryan Giggs and Paul Scholes, with Alan Smith in reserve, the principal worry being that Scholes' erratic tackling could cost another yellow card and rule him out of any final, just as the Juventus game did eight years ago. "The advice to him the other night was not to slide in at tackles because that's where he gets all his bookings," Ferguson said.
"In Europe they just don't accept it, they don't accept sliding in so if he stays on his feet and tackles properly he won't have a problem. When he slides in, we accept it in our country because we see it every week, but you don't get it in Europe the same way.
"It's interpretation. It's not filthy, it's not violent conduct or anything like that, it's just the way he slides in at tackles and that is not accepted by most referees in Europe. If anyone deserves a European final it's him, isn't it?" Who could disagree?
Sportingly, Ferguson was not prepared to criticise the quality of the other semi-final, insisting only that he had watched an "interesting" game with a professional eye. He will do the same on Tuesday night, hoping only that it is Manchester United the winners will be awaiting in Athens on 23 May. As to which of them he would prefer: "We'll play anybody. I'd play the Glenbuck Cherrypickers [the late Bill Shankly's village team]. It'd be a great final that."