Manchester United-Chelsea FC: England joins Spain and Italy
This season’s UEFA Champions League Final will see Chelsea - Manchester United go head to head in arguably the biggest match ever played between two English clubs. Of course it’s not being played on English soil, with both teams and their fans travelling to Moscow for the 21 May showdown at Luzhniki Stadium. This will be the third occasion where two teams from the same country – England – will play the final match of the Champions League joining two other countries – Spain and Italy – that have done the same. In year 2000 it was Real Madrid and Valencia who played the final match at Saint Denis Stadium in Paris (Real Madrid win 3-0) and in year 2003 Milan and Juventus have done the same at Old Trafford Stadium in Manchester (Milan win 3-2 pen). Europe’s top club competition has never featured two English sides in the Final before. But Tottenham Hotspur and Wolverhampton Wanderers did contest the UEFA Cup Final over two legs in 1972. In the early years of the competition two English sides couldn’t meet, because only the League Champions were able to enter. Manchester United entered as holder in 1968, but avoided Manchester City in the First Round draw and City were surprisingly knocked out by Fenerbahce from Turkey. In 1977 Liverpool won the ‘European Cup’, as we called it in those days, but they were League Champions too.Manchester United and Chelsea FC will fight for this year European crown and the winner will receive the competition trophy number 53.