It was just another illustration of how Louis van Gaal sees the fundamentals of football very differently from almost anyone else. After his Manchester United side defeated Liverpool 3-1 on Saturday, the manager was asked about the exhilarating second half in which all the goals were scored.
Van Gaal was not quite exhilarated. He seemed mildly irritated by the question and pointed out that he thought the first half was better because of United's "control." This was a first half in which United saw only one goal-scoring opportunity, a long shot from a misplaced Liverpool pass
Yet just as Van Gaal has already demanded that his United players change how they look at the game, one potential consequence is that it may lead to the club changing how they look at the Champions League, too. His idiosyncrasies may reverse another traditional view because for all of United's history in the competition since Matt Busby first defied Football League instructions to bring the Busby Babes onto the continent back in 1956, the grand European Cup trophy has represented an elevated but often elusive symbolic prize.
It was commonly described as a "holy grail" for Busby after the Munich air disaster in 1958, and Alex Ferguson referred to it as a "crusade" decades later. United have only won the competition after suffering long nights of the soul and getting to a point of readiness after an extended period of domestic dominance. They've never done anything close to what Chelsea did in 2012. They've won it only when they've patently been among the best in Europe, around the level of the current Barcelona or Bayern Munich.
This year, it might well be the opposite. The "controlled" football Van Gaal talked about might be better-suited for Europe even though United are not even the best in England. United might have a much better chance of winning the Champions League under him than of winning the league
That rationale is not solely down to the football. It's also down to the nature of the competitions. Domestic leagues don't really allow for upsetting the odds. If a team wins, it's because they're the best in the country, winning enough games over a complete schedule. The one concern with Van Gaal's controlled approach is that United will draw too many matches because they can become predictable.
That need not be the case in the Champions League. First, for all its understandable prestige, it has allowed an awful lot of fluke winners or champions who clearly weren't the best on the continent, from Porto in 2004 to Liverpool in 2005.
Chelsea manager Jose Mourinho summed up the contradiction last season. "Sometimes [winning the Champions League] is not a consequence of great work," he said in November. "You can win the Champions League in your worst season. A knockout competition is something that always has a big percentage of unpredictability."
That unpredictability has been tempered somewhat by the dominance of the wealthy superclubs, as it seems only about nine teams are capable of winning it. This is a point Mourinho was touching on, though, and one relevant to United. If you're wealthy enough, just being in the Champions League means you always have a chance. United are wealthy enough. Their immense resources should give them a foothold in the latter stages. Van Gaal's football should greatly strengthen that foothold.
Here, that "control" can become a much greater virtue since you don't need to actually win a certain number of games, as you do in the league. You don't even need to be that convincing. As long as you keep that foothold in games and stay competitive, you need only three pieces of inspiration or luck and you can suddenly find yourself in a final.
That was almost exactly what happened with Van Gaal's Bayern Munich in 2010. Their possession game ensured that every match was close and gave them the opportunity to make the best of any luck that came their way. In the last-16 against Fiorentina, they got the benefit of a first-leg Miroslav Klose goal that Van Gaal admitted was offside, before Arjen Robben hit a key away goal to make it 4-4 and send Bayern through.
In the quarterfinals against Manchester United, a free-scoring Wayne Rooney got injured before Rafael stupidly got sent off. Robben then produced another moment of brilliance with a volleyed winner. In the semifinals, Bayern had the luck to avoid the two best teams by far: Barcelona and Internazionale. If Bayern had met either of those, it's highly probable they would have gone out. Instead, they beat Lyon, and Van Gaal was afforded another showpiece occasion.
Philipp Lahm spoke about the specifics of Van Gaal's style in the middle of that Champions League run, and so much of it could ring through for United. "We now control the game better," the full-back said. "You sense there's a structure to the team now, there's organisation on and off the pitch ... nothing is left to chance, everything is set up strategically."
It all sounds so calculated, but that might be the only way to approach a competition as open as a cup. If you are not among the very best, the best you can do in the Champions League is try to play the percentages. This can be where those possession percentages become most relevant. They can give Van Gaal a real look-in at the competition, and perhaps a much better chance than in the Premier League. They could also prove to be the difference.
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