Never say die United - the embodiment of Ferguson's psyche

On a final day when only one position was left to fight for, Sir Alex Ferguson bowed out from football management with a hand in another record of sorts. For once, it was one of entertainment not achievement: the Premier League's first ever 5-5 draw. The manager who brought 38 trophies in 26 years to a single club could set new landmarks without meaning to.

It was fitting for Ferguson's final season that one of Manchester United's greatest traits under his stewardship – their never-say-die spirit – was evident on so many occasions. The number of late winning goals they scored was startling.

In their third match of the campaign, two Robin van Persie goals at 87 and 90 minutes transformed a loss into a win against Southampton. Two games later, a van Persie penalty at 81 minutes against Liverpool secured another victory. Having struck a lateish winner against Chelsea, Javier Hernandez did it again versus Villa, 87 minutes in. Van Persie's free-kick in stoppage time away to Manchester City opened up a six-point lead over their rivals and Hernandez came off the bench to score in the very last minute against Newcastle on Boxing Day.

And all these came in the first half of the season.

The amount of points United gained from losing positions would have been shattering for their opponents. Leading teams often faced in the latter stages of a match a hungry United gunning for them, hunting them down and displaying a deeply ingrained will to win. Inevitably it would end only one way: with United wrestling the points from their possession at the last gasp. United recovered to win 29 points from losing positions this season, the second highest total in the league's history.

Last year's title winners Manchester City threatened, but failed to find their highest gear. They moved to top of the table on November 17 when they thrashed Aston Villa 5-0, and were unbeaten until their 16^th match.

But their loss to United in the dying seconds of the game, inflicted by the player Roberto Mancini craved, was an almighty blow from which City could not recover.

United proved that last season's collapse of form, where they surrendered an eight point lead in April, was an anomaly. Indeed, finishing a campaign strongly has been another characteristic of United under Ferguson. The ability to front-run, combined with a hatred of being behind, made United the ultimate psychologically tough side.

In 2013, Ferguson ensured there would be no repeat of last year's failure, and United marched unflappably to an elusive 20^th league title.   

Good riddance to a troublemaker

He has been a two-and-a-half year nightmare for Roberto Mancini, but the game is now up for Mario Balotelli, and the Manchester City manager can say good riddance to the troublesome striker.

Too often Balotelli appeared to behave more as a celebrity than a footballer, and allowed his profession to play second fiddle as fulfilling showbiz duty appeared to be of the utmost importance. During his time at Manchester City, the most talked about incidents involving Balotelli happened off the pitch. The most famous image of Mario may well be of him partying with Paris Hilton in Ibiza.

Having been offered a chance to prove himself again at Milan, Balotelli needs to distance himself from hedonistic indulgences and study how a serious sports person, such as Jessica Ennis, behaves. In a professional sense, Ennis is the anti-Balotelli. When on the Graham Norton Show alongside Ricky Gervais and Daniel Radcliffe, Ennis talked passionately about her training, brought her Olympic heptathlon gold medal to show and share, and left the joke cracking to the others.

Acting foolishly isn't her domain and she made no attempt to pretend it was. Were Balotelli on the show Norton could have quizzed him about the time he set fireworks off in his bathroom and nearly burnt his house down in the process, or when he threw a dart at a youth team player at training, or whether the fake Santa driving around Manchester handing out wads of cash was indeed him. He would hardly be recognisable as a footballer, but it's not a bad way to earn £180,000 a week, eh?

Aside from the outlandish tomfoolery, Balotelli scored 30 goals in 80 games for City and was a certainty from the penalty spot. However, he received four red cards and 23 yellows; that's just three fewer cards than goals scored. He fought Micah Richards, he fought his manager. He made it extremely difficult for any sincere City fan to take to him.

In an unforgettable demonstration of his huge potential Balotelli scored two pivotal goals to fire Italy to the Euro 2012 final, which led many believers to predict that he would start the 2012/13 season in the same devastating form. That never happened. Balotelli has scored one league goal all season; his attitude in training and on the pitch coupled with his antics off it led him to become the club's fourth choice senior striker, and subsequently being sold halfway through their title defence.

When Milan swooped with an offer of around £20m for the talent-wasting striker, Mancini could have hardly believed his luck. It allowed him to end the nightmare of nurturing Balotelli from wild to world beater with minimal transfer fee lost. Balotelli's ability is obvious but his application is sadly lacking.

photo by Piotr Drabik

Champion of league champions

Tonight German champions Borussia Dortmund host English champions Manchester City in the final round of Champions League group matches. Regardless of the result, Dortmund are about to be crowned a more impressive kind of champion.

They have won the ultimate 'group of death' - a group that comprises league winners from England, Germany, Netherlands and Spain. Most significantly, they did so with a game to spare. It gives them the unofficial tag 'champion of league champions'.

The seeding system could hardly have produced a tougher group. Indeed, on paper, if any of the four teams should have feared the draw most, it was Dortmund. They were seeded in pool four, but they made a mockery of that, progressing to the knockout stages in first place.

Dortmund are unbeaten in Group D, with three wins and two draws, but it could easily have been five wins out of five. A 90th minute penalty rescued City in game two, and an excellent 89th minute free-kick from Mesut Özil spared Madrid consecutive losses to the Germans.

They have grown in confidence with each game. After a tentative yet solid start, with a 1-0 win over Ajax and a 1-1 draw away to City, Dortmund exploded onto the scene with two outstanding, high tempo performances against Madrid. Then they routed Ajax 4-1 in Amsterdam to emphatically seal the group win.

Dortmund has been restored to its glory days by brilliant young manager Jürgen Klopp, who has built a robust team that plays fast-paced, counter-attacking football, which is leaving the rest of Europe trailing in its wake.

In Neven Subotic and Mats Hummels they have two of the best young talents at centre-back. They are both just 23 years old, stand an intimidating 6'3” and 6'4” and chip in with their fair share of goals too.

A strong Polish contingent is a key part of the Dortmund revolution. Łukasz Piszczek and Jakub Błaszczykowski occupy the right-wing with the energy of many entire teams, and Robert Lewandowski is a one-man force in attack. 

Not many players perform the lone forward role as effectively as Lewandowski. He hit 22 league goals last season - none of which were penalties to cheaply boost numbers - and is the current co-top scorer in this campaign.

They have the current German player of the year in Marco Reus, who fearlessly opened the scoring in Amsterdam, Madrid and Manchester. He is a versatile attacking midfielder and works in combination with playmaker Mario Götze, who was described by former German Football Association technical director Matthias Sammer as “one of the best talents we've ever had.”

They are a devastatingly slick side, who are setting the Champions League alight. Results in this year's competition have shown that any team is beatable. Barcelona were humbled by minnows Celtic.

The tournament has been blown wide open. Dortmund, surely, must be considered as genuine contenders to the grand title of European champions.