Milan just perfect, says Ancelotti
Wednesday, May 2, 2007
Article summary
Carlo Ancelotti was not short of superlatives to describe AC Milan's magical display as the Rossoneri simply blew Manchester United FC away to advance.
Article body
"A dream" and "perfect football" - Carlo Ancelotti was not short of superlatives to describe AC Milan's outstanding display as they teased their way to a 3-0 victory against Manchester United FC which completed a 5-3 aggregate triumph and earned the Rossoneri a final date with another English team, Liverpool FC. Sir Alex Ferguson was gracious in defeat, hailing Milan's professionalism and the "great game" they played. uefa.com rounds up the reaction from San Siro.
Carlo Ancelotti, Milan coach
Watching your team play as we did in the first half is the dream of every coach, in the first 45 minutes we played perfect football. We built our victory on our great start. This is a great joy, especially considering the way this adventure started. It will be a fascinating match against Liverpool, who are a more physical side than Manchester United. Champions League football is unique for the special atmosphere at every match but I think Milan are the best side in Europe in these kind of games - we rarely play a bad game at this level. Most of all, however, I'm happy because we are in peak physical condition at the right time of the season. We did a great job during the Christmas break with this goal in mind and now we are seeing the results.
Sir Alex Ferguson, Manchester United manager
We are disappointed, obviously. Milan were better prepared physically for this game and we conceded two goals quite cheaply and could not cope with that. In Europe you can't give the ball away, unfortunately we did and Milan were much better than us at keeping possession. The biggest difference, however, was the level of experience and you gain that by keeping the same team for many years as Milan have done. Tonight they started so quickly, pressing every ball, and they played a great game. You always have to recover from disappointment. We have done in the past and I'm sure we'll handle it on Saturday. It's difficult to predict who will win the final, Milan proved tonight they can prepare for these type of games very well.