Manchester United opens Champions League defense with 0-0 tie.
SOCCER DAILY
Home team has some chances against Villarreal of Spain. Chelsea, which lost to Man U. in the final in Moscow in May, wins its opener easily.
Manchester United's quest to become the first soccer team since AC Milan in 1990 to win back-to-back European Champions League titles started off in less-than-spectacular fashion Wednesday when its home game against Villarreal of Spain ended in a 0-0 stalemate.
By contrast, Chelsea, which lost to Manchester United on penalty kicks in the Champions League final in Moscow in May, opened its account with a 4-0 drubbing of the French side Bordeaux in London on Tuesday.
"It is important to start with a win because in this competition you never know what will happen," said Chelsea Coach Luiz Felipe Scolari.
The contrasting results should not be taken as any indication of how this season's Champions League will turn out. There are too many games between now and next May's final in Rome to say that either team will be there at the end.
There are also too many top-flight teams among the 32 in the running, including Inter Milan, Barcelona, Liverpool, Bayern Munich, Arsenal, Juventus and Real Madrid.
But winning Europe's biggest club prize once again is clearly Manchester United's priority, even more so than defending its English Premier League title.
"Winning in Moscow was so important because there was an imbalance in our club's history given the importance we place, and have always placed, on European football," Manchester United Coach Alex Ferguson said before Wednesday's match.
"When you consider that teams like Bayern Munich have won this trophy four times, Ajax four, Liverpool five, AC Milan seven times and Real Madrid nine, you see how far short of that group we were. That group is our target now -- it has to be."
Manchester United is a three-time winner, with its first European Cup victory coming in 1968 and two more following in 1999 and 2008 after the competition had morphed into the Champions League in 1992 -- same event, different name.
The stakes are huge in Europe, which is why, even on Match Day 1 in a competition that will run for the next eight months, the crowd of 74,944 at Old Trafford was kept on the edge of its seats for the Manchester United-Villarreal match.
There was a huge sigh of relief when aback-heel by Villarreal's Uruguayan midfielder Sebastian Eguren ricocheted off the inside of the left post and out into the grateful arms of Manchester United's Dutch goalkeeper Edwin van der Sar.
