And Messi hadn't even broken through then!
It's honestly bizarre, given our history in the competition, both pre Heysel and since 2005, that so many clubs continue to underestimate us.
I can understand fans being a bit arrogant and confident - we all believe our team is the best after all - but there's also a glaring lack of humility, and it does seem to be mostly the Spanish clubs' problem - although Italy in the past has also had this attitude.
The irony of that attitude from Barca fans is that they only won it for the first time in 1992 as they were not good enough to even qualify for the competition let alone win it, always in the shadow of Real Madrid. We already had four wins under our belt by then, perhaps that's why, because they had little or no contact with the competition they showed little interest in it. Maybe they consider themselves superior because they've taken some of best players away, I mean who could turn down a move to Barcelona?
On the subject of players, I didn't get the impression on here that there was much fear about the return of Coutinho, the talk was all about Messi and Suarez. Then when I read their forum, it seems that many of them don't rate him, he was a good player for us but how many matches did he win for us, the City and Chelsea games spring to mind. Then when you compare that with the number of points we've gained with Allison and Van Dijk in the team, say 20-30, it's probably the best bit of business we've done in years. I think the general consensus is that it's been a poor deal for them and a great one for us, added to that the player purchase clause we now have in place with them and they might think twice about coming back to raid us again.
