Sneezy, Sleepy, et al, no match for Manchester United

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Well, Snow White never showed up and Celtic’s dwarfs (see today’s earlier post) never had a chance against a Manchester United lineup that would be the envy of any club on Earth.

Tuesday’s 3-0 victory by United left Sir Alex Ferguson’s side comfortably atop its European Champions League group and already looking ahead to next year’s knockout stages. Two goals by Dimitar Berbatov, each with a touch of controversy, and one by Wayne Rooney did the trick in front of another sellout crowd of 74,655 at Old Trafford.

The game was one of eight Champions League matches Tuesday (for a roundup, check the Los Angeles Times later today), with another eight set for Wednesday.

The thing about United is not the players’ unquestioned quality or their combined annual payroll of somewhere in the neighborhood of $150 million. It’s their diversity. These were the 14 players that Ferguson chose to employ on Tuesday:

Edwin van der Sar -- Netherlands

Gary Neville -- England

Wes Brown -- England

Jonny Evans -- Northern Ireland

Nemanja Vidic -- Serbia

John O’Shea -- Ireland

Cristiano Ronaldo -- Portugal

Park Ji-sung -- South Korea

Darren Fletcher -- Scotland

Anderson -- Brazil

Nani -- Portugal

Berbatov -- Bulgaria

Carlos Tevez -- Argentina

Rooney -- England

That’s 14 players from 11 countries on three continents.

Name me one U.S. professional team in any other sport that can match that sort of international flavor.

There isn’t one. It’s what makes the global game unique and sets it apart from all the pretenders.

--Grahame L. Jones