Background
Barcelona and Manchester United had previously faced each other nine times in European competitions: three times in the UEFA Cup Winners' Cup and six times in the UEFA Champions League. Of those nine matches, Manchester United had recorded three wins to Barcelona's two, with the remaining four matches finishing in draws. The only time that the two teams met in a final came in 1991, when they contested the 1991 Cup Winners' Cup final. The first meeting between the two sides came in the third round of the 1983–84 Cup Winners' Cup; Barcelona won the first leg at the Camp Nou 2–0, but Manchester United won the return leg 3–0 at Old Trafford to reach the semi-finals. That result marked Manchester United's biggest win over Barcelona; Barcelona's biggest win was a 4–0 home victory in the group stage of the 1994–95 Champions League. The most recent meeting between the teams came in the semi-finals of the 2007–08 Champions League, when United held Barcelona to a 0–0 draw at the Camp Nou before beating them 1–0 at Old Trafford. Despite their record against Manchester United, Barcelona had an overall winning record against English clubs, having won 20 and lost 15 of their 52 matches against English opposition. Manchester United, on the other hand, had a losing record against Spanish teams; they had lost 11 and won 10 of their 37 matches.
Both teams had won the UEFA Champions League before; Manchester United had three titles, while Barcelona had two. The most recent of these had come only the season before, when Manchester United beat Chelsea on penalties in the Luzhniki Stadium in Moscow. They won the first of their European Cups in 1968, beating Benfica 4–1 at Wembley Stadium, while their second was achieved in 1999 via a last-gasp 2–1 win over Bayern Munich at Barcelona's home ground, the Camp Nou. Barcelona's first European Cup was won as recently as 1992, when they beat Sampdoria 1–0 after extra time at Wembley; their only other title came in 2006 with a 2–1 win over another English side, Arsenal. Prior to 2009, unlike Barcelona, Manchester United had never lost a European Cup final; Barcelona had lost three – in 1961, 1986 and 1994, to Benfica, Steaua Bucureşti and Milan respectively.
Both teams went into the match as the champions of their respective countries – the first time that the final had been contested by domestic champions since 1999, when Manchester United beat Bayern Munich 2–1 at Barcelona's home, the Camp Nou – both winning with games to spare. Manchester United won their 11th Premier League title with a 0–0 draw at home to Arsenal on 16 May, while Barcelona were confirmed as La Liga champions for the first time in three years when Real Madrid lost to Villarreal on the same day. Both Manchester United and Barcelona were also looking for another Champions League title to cap a season in which they had won multiple trophies: Manchester United had already won four out of a possible seven trophies in 2008–09 and were playing for the possibility of becoming the third team to retain the European Double (the domestic league and the European Cup), while Barcelona were aiming to become the first Spanish club to win a Treble of La Liga, the Copa del Rey and the UEFA Champions League.
Read more about this topic: 2009 UEFA Champions League Final
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