While Barcelona and Lionel Messi represent a daunting prospect for Manchester United – Ole Gunnar Solskjaer may just be relieved to avoid Cristiano Ronaldo.
Discussing the most open quarter-final draw in recent memory, the Norwegian’s thoughts quickly turned to his former team-mate.
This was early Friday morning and before United were paired with Barca in the last eight.
Solskjaer, considering the potential of facing unfancied Porto or Ajax, brought a dose of reality to the debate.
“There’s still top, top quality,” he said. “Of course with Cristiano still in it I don’t think it’s opened up that much!”
Ronaldo’s stunning hat-trick in Juventus’ comeback win against Atletico Madrid in midweek sounded a warning to the rest of Europe. And if Solskjaer was looking on the bright side of the Champions League draw, he could point to the fact United will avoid Ronaldo and Juve until the final, should he get there.
Thoughts of reaching the Estadio Wanda Metropolitano felt a long way off after Barca were confirmed as United’s quarter-final opponents. But 20 years on from the 1999 treble-winning campaign and Solskjaer’s decisive goal at the Nou Camp, it would be easy to think fate is on his side.
Not that he has much time for such talk – nor the idea that luck is the sole reason behind his remarkable turnaround of United.
“There have been a couple of comments about ‘You used to have number 20’ and blah blah blah,” he said. “But I believe that you get what you deserve in life, in sports.
“If you put the work in, I believe, if you work hard, show the right attitude, if you go in every single day and do the right things you can maximise your chances.
“I’m not one to judge what I deserve. I just do whatever I can to deserve good things.”
United travel to Wolves on Saturday in the quarter-finals of the FA Cup.
After overcoming Chelsea and Arsenal away already, Solskjaer does see parallels to 99 when United had a similarly daunting run on the way to winning the Cup.
“To win trophies you’ve got to win at least one or two really tough games,” he said. “They’re like defining moments.
“We beat Liverpool, we beat Chelsea, we beat Arsenal back then, and you think ‘We deserve a little bit of luck in the draw next time.’
“But Wolves away, what a difficult game that can be. So comparisons? Well we’re not challenging to win the league this year, but we are challenging for the other two trophies.
“The more games you win, the more confidence you breed, the more hunger there is in the players.
“Every single game that you win puts another layer on that, on the way to becoming the team that we want to be. So I don’t agree with Gary Neville when he says that teams should go out of this and this to focus on that.
“The confidence in the players, it’s sky high. And the mood is good, the training attitude is good, so hopefully we can keep that run going.”
