It would have been a bad sign for Manchester United if Rio Ferdinand was at his most intense tonight. The centre-half, who has been absent from the team with a calf strain since 5 May, only gets overwrought when he is not on the field. His celebrations in the directors' box were boisterous, for instance, when Federico Macheda scored a stoppage-time winner against Aston Villa in April.
Ferdinand was confident of his fitness last night. "The injury is fine and I have trained for the last few days," he said. The defender is certainly expected to play against Barcelona and a laid-back demeanour should be in evidence. It is the aftermath of games that can hurl him into turmoil.
He portrays himself as a man whose reaction to defeat borders on the absurd. "When I lose," he admitted, "my mum and dad can't get hold of me for days. I won't speak to them. They will text me and say that they know I am upset but just want to say hello. And I just won't have it.
"Ask the groundsman or anyone. If I walk in from training and I have lost then people will look at me and think: 'Yep, he has lost today.' I can't help it. It was like at Wigan, we won but they scored first and all their fans were giving it this and that towards where we were sitting. Then we scored and I was, like, the loudest person in the directors' box. I turned to Fletch [Darren Fletcher] and said: 'If they score again now I am absolutely f****d.' When we scored the second goal I just got up and left straight away."
His frame of mind could reflect early days with West Ham and Leeds, where prizes were not really expected. The opportunities at United may seem all the more precious. Immediately after beating Chelsea to win the Champions League last season he, Michael Carrick and Owen Hargreaves, who has missed the whole of this campaign, sat in the dressing room and were already talking about their eagerness to experience the final of the tournament all over again.
Any footballers might speak of such an ambition, but United are currently at a level where it is a wholly practical conversation. Ferdinand makes no effort to disguise his confidence about beating Barcelona, who were on the verge of elimination to Chelsea in their semi-final until a goal in the dying seconds.
"Yes," Ferdinand said, "there is stuff to take from the Chelsea game. We can play like that if we want. We can be a defensive team. But I also think we are the best counterattack team in the world. There is no team that can do that like us. Barcelona will be wary of it."
With his fitness problems, it might seem that the 30-year-old is encountering the troubles of a veteran. But it is Ferdinand's view that a bad back has been at the root of the problem, and that sessions with an osteopath have dealt with the matter. This point in United's history is not the moment for anyone to spare a thought for retirement.
