How Man Utd lined up last time they beat Barca with just 2 players still active

MANCHESTER UNITED head to the Nou Camp aiming to beat Barcelona for the first time in FIFTEEN years.

Erik ten Hag’s side drew the Spanish giants in a blockbuster Europa League play-off tie.

United have lost their last four meetings with Barca – the 2009 and 2011 Champions League finals and the 2019 quarter-finals.

But they got the better of Frank Rijkaard’s men in the semi-finals in 2008 to book their place in the final, where they beat Chelsea on penalties in Moscow.

The first leg ended 0-0 in Spain before a 1-0 win back at Old Trafford on April 29.

Paul Scholes scored a stunning effort to seal the tie, letting fly from 25 yards to beat Victor Valdes – although the midfielder later admitted it was a miskicked slice.

Now, though, just two members of United’s entire squad from that memorable night are still playing professional football.

Those two are Cristiano Ronaldo, who recently left the Red Devils again for Al-Nassr, and unused sub Danny Welbeck, still in the Premier League with Brighton.

Ronaldo played the full 90 minutes up front alongside Carlos Tevez.

Scholes lined up in the middle of the park with Michael Carrick, who is now trying to lead Middlesbrough to promotion in his first managerial job.

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Nani and Park Ji-Sung were the wide men under Sir Alex Ferguson with a back four of Owen Hargreaves, Rio Ferdinand, Wes Brown and Patrice Evra.

Edwin van der Sar was in goal with Darren Fletcher, Ryan Giggs and Mikael Silvestre coming off the bench.

Tomasz Kuszczak, Anderson and John O’Shea remained on the bench alongside Welbeck.

For Barca, Lionel Messi is the only member of the squad still with a club, and a Champions League one at that with Paris Saint-Germain, with Bojan recently leaving Vissel Kobe.

Among the starters for the Catalan club in Manchester were Puyol, Andres Iniesta, Yaya Toure, Samuel Eto’o and now-manager Xavi – while Thierry Henry came off the bench.

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