My Lionel Messi mistake that cost us Champions League: Ex-Man United boss Sir Alex Ferguson

Sir Alex Ferguson believes his Manchester United side could have won the 2011 Uefa Champions League final against Barcelona, and stopped Lionel Messi.

The Red Devils lost 3-1 to Barcelona in Wembley and Ferguson believes he could have stopped that from happening.

Lionel Messi was in rare form on the night, scoring a stunning goal, and constantly leaving left United’s world-class defence in tatters.

In a 2021 interview with former United captain Gary Neville, Ferguson revealed he could have stopped Messi but waited too long to do so.

“I realised after 10 minutes… I was going to do it at half-time and I said well if we could just equalise before half-time they might see the game differently and we may grow into the game better. 

“We were quite good in the last 10 minutes of that half anyway, we came into it and we could have been in front actually. But if I’d played Ji-Sung Park against Messi, I think we’d have beaten them. I really do.

“Messi with two highlights, the fantastic goal he scored and he made the other one. He was a great player, but if there was a great player who was going to do it [stop him] it was Ji-Sung Park.”