Barcelona vs Manchester United: To Ole Gunnar Solskjaer, the second leg is about much more than 1999

Solskjaer doesn’t have to draw on the club’s past, because he can draw on the last few weeks

Ole Gunnar Solskjaer has spent the last few days trying to whip his players up, but in a different way to recently, since there was something else he was trying to play down.

This time, as he sat in the Nou Camp press room, he just wasn’t getting into all the talk about 1999. When a Catalan journalist inevitably asked him about it ahead of Manchester United’s Champions League quarter-final second leg in Barcelona, Solskjaer came out with the following: “I don’t look back on that night too often.”

Many might dispute that from the last few weeks, particularly after their 1-0 first-leg defeat. When Solskjaer attempted to joke about how United have a history of scoring from corners at Nou Camp, the laughter in the Old Trafford press room did seem so much more muted. There is an irony that the United manager’s nostalgia act has become wearying just as they actually get to the stadium where the club enjoyed its greatest ever moment, but that actually reflects something deeper about the scale of this challenge.

There’s first of all the problem that this United team has been running on empty. All of the feeling around Solskjaer’s appointment – and everything it entailed – could only propel them so far, especially since the Norwegian and his staff have now found that the squad is physically fatigued. Solskjaer has recently been seriously thinking about their fitness programme and the changes he may have to make, which sharpens the need to play on his players’ emotions with something different.

There’s secondly the basic fact it was Bayern Munich they faced in that famous game rather than Barcelona, but that is mainly relevant in another way – and not necessarily a stirring one.

The Germans won 3-0 at the Nou Camp in the 2012-13 semi-finals and that – remarkably – is the only time the Catalans have suffered a home defeat in the Champions League knockout stages in the last 12 years.

Their record at the stadium once it gets to the business end of the season is actually sensational. Of the 27 knockout legs there since Pep Guardiola took over – and, for argument’s sake, the Lionel Messi era properly began – Barca have won 20 and drawn six, while scoring 76 goals. That big Bayern defeat also came in the season when Tito Vilanova had to step down due illness and the side was emotionally exhausted, having already lost the first leg 3-0.

Those are significant caveats, and that is why that Bayern game is the only significant set-back in what is one imposing list of home results.

This is precisely why Barca were so contained in the first leg, and so satisfied with a 1-0 lead.

Most pointedly, that is why this is actually a much more difficult task than overturning Paris Saint-Germain’s 2-0 away lead, despite the fact no one had done that in history.

The French side after all had a history of collapsing, and a lot of complexes about merely getting through such situations in the modern Champions League.

Barcelona do not. When it comes to home legs, they are fully confident they can get through, and in a convincing manner. That is the same now.

Hence another reason for the change of tune. Solskjaer did play up United’s own history of comebacks before the PSG second leg, so knows something different is required now. He also knows Barca are a “different prospect”, as he said in his pre-match press conference.

But that, to be fair, is one other effect of that PSG game. Solskjaer doesn’t have to draw on the club’s past, because he can draw on the last few weeks.

“We will use the PSG [match], we will use the Juventus away. We have beaten some good teams away from home this year, and played against some great players.”

Scott McTominay battles with Lionel Messi for the ball (Getty)

None, however, as good as Messi.

There’s then the grand tactical problem of this game for United. Barca have absolutely no need to come out in this tie and are so good at obsessively keeping the ball. That was something just as notable in the first leg, as if the Catalans just rumbled that United had little beyond counter-attacking – so refused to give them the space. Expect similar here, except with Messi and Luis Suarez breaking with so much more menace. It will mean Solskjaer has to come up with much more than the counter-attacking approach that worked so well in Paris. It was conspicuous how much he mentioned set-pieces, and not just as a call-back.

Perhaps more intrigue could be detected in his implication that just hoarding possession can be counter-intuitively dangerous in such knock-out games, when the tone can so suddenly change.

“There have been some freak results at times against Barca, where you have 85-15 or 80-20 possession. We know we have to perform better than 80-20 and try and stamp our authority on the game, if you give players time on the ball, too many chances to create you’ll suffer, I hope we are not just going to be camped outside our own box.

“In football anything can happen at any time and if we can still be in this tie in the 93rd minute, we can get a set-piece, we are physically taller than them.”

This second leg is going to be about more than size, though, and more than counter-attacking. It’s certainly about much more than 1999.

It’s about rupturing one of the finest home records in the Champions League, and one of the continent’s finest teams.

It’s going to take something even this club hasn’t seen before.