English clubs were banned from European football for the first 4 years of Sir Alex's reign and then when the ban ended they were hampered by the foreigner rule. It took years for the English domestic game to catch up with their European counterparts and it was only after Man Utd's triumph in 1999 that English clubs become really competitive in the Champions League. In fact, in 1999 the Premiership was still way below La Liga and Serie A. Since 1999 Sir Alex's European record has been much better. They have broken numerous records and reached 4 finals. Also, the Champions League is also far more difficult to win than the old European Cup. It is, therefore, ridiculous that people slate Sir Alex's European record and try to compare it took the like of Paisley's.
Worth remembering when assessing Ferguson's European record that Manchester United won the European Cup Winners' Cup in English teams' first season back in Europe after the Heysel ban. They beat Barcelona in the final who, a year later, won their first ever European Cup by beating Sampdoria at Wembley.
Was that rule just applicable to English teams then Look for excuses all you want but his record was poor and even he has said so.
You will find England back then had a higher amount of johnny foreigners in our than our euro friends
no shame in Fergie's European record but he absolutely could have done better soon after 1999, with that team you had you are blaming the foreigner rule and the ban.. really? , the OP is lame in trying to big it up over Paisley he achieved fantastic success. Really lame. If it was so easy to do so well in Europe when and before paisley was manager maybe the OP can explain why United did not go on to win many more before it became the CL? Also, it is a failing that so many foreigners play in the PL as England have no chance of winning anything because of that fact plus, all european teams had the foreigner rule just because they have better national players it is somehow unfair to United in their quest for more CLs? Lame beyond measure OP I thought you only didn't win more because of complacency and ref decisions now its a new bunch of excuses from the OP. It has to be put into context, Real Madrid have not won it and not had many finals since 1999, Fergie's got United to 4 and won 2. That is a great achievement given the strength of European teams since 1999 to the current date. A great achievement indeed. He would probably tell you he is not happy with not winning more soon after 1999 with the team he had, you can't fault his last 6 or so years, 3 finals in 4 years. You sometimes need luck as much as anything else to win the CL As for this tosh^ you have no idea how hard it was to win the European cup, I will tell you, first you had to win your league, so that takes two finals away from United if it was the old version. Can you grasp that?
This. We could have won it a couple more times, but we didn't. **** happens. I think our European record would be better if we'd been more like Madrid and focused on the CL, but SAF has always been squarely focused on the league. We'd probably have another one or two in the cabinet if so, but then like Real we'd have a lot fewer league titles and other cups. Would any of us be happier if we had five CLs but only 16 or 17 titles? Didn't think so! Cos we didn't qualify for that many! If you look at the respective records before the comp was expanded, Utd entered it five times and won it once. With one of those times being a write off due to the Munich disaster, our record is effectively entered four times, won once. Liverpool, on the other hand, entered it 12 times and won it four times. So your success rate isn't all that much higher than ours in the actual competition, you just had a lot more bites at the cherry by virtue of winning the league so many times!
How many times have we won the league Sisu if the Champions League was of the old format I personaly believe we would have won it more, thats a pretty fair assumption. Though i much prefer it in its current format, i love watching the various European matches. I am more than happy with Sir Alex's European record anyway, we also got to enjoy a treble which was ****ing amazing.
We've been very unlucky to hit our European peak at the same time as the emergence of one of, if not the, best teams in club football history in the shape of Barcelona. Did Liverpool have a similar rival back in the 70s and 80s? I don't think so.
We probably should have won the champions league one more time than we have so far. Can't win em all though, eh? Too busy hoovering up league titles, which will do for me.
Rafa has won more European trophies than Fergie with United now and he's gonna be managing for a time yet.
Why do you include all of Rafas clubs but not all of Fergies. He won at Aberdeen. Aberdeen!!! Think how incredible that is. Another bitter, lame point from Sisu. Kagawa has won more premier league than Liverpool. See, coming up with facts is easy Sisu
Sisu can't recall life before Fergie's time at United beyond some blurry memories of Liverpool winning league and European titles and a red bandwagon with a moustache and perm. Fergie ruined his life.
No he hasn't. He's won three, same as Ferguson. Fergie also won the WC with Aberdeen so, wrong sonny.
