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Ahead of Manchester United's crucial Champions League second leg clash at home to Porto, Sir Alex Ferguson has admitted that the competition is extremely difficult to win, though he is optimistic about United's chances of reaching the next round at least.
A 2-1 defeat in Portugal has put the pressure on United to deliver, and they will have to do it without captain Roy Keane after he was sent off in the first leg. However, Ferguson believes that his team will be good enough to progress to the last eight of the competition for the eighth successive season and line up with the European elite once again.
"We are trying to win the best tournament in the world," he said. "The quality of European football is fantastic and this competition supersedes the World Cup now. It has all the best teams and all the best players.
"We are competing with all the teams who have been synonymous with success since the whole thing first started. People might say our results in the knockout phase have been mixed down the years but we have consistently got to the last eight or the last four and we have produced some terrific performances against the best teams.
"We have lost on away goals in the quarter-finals and semi-finals and last season we scored five in two games against Real Madrid and didn't get through. I look at that record and don't think we are doing too much wrong.
"If you look at this season's Champions League results, the home sides have done fantastically well," said Ferguson. "We have a good record at home in big matches ourselves and obviously I am hoping that continues.
"As in the case of all European games there is a job to be done and we must impose ourselves on the contest, which is something we didn't do in the first leg. I would like to think we can improve dramatically on that performance and you will see a different United side tonight."
Ferguson clashed angrily with his opposite number Jose Mourinho after the first leg and there has been plenty of animosity between the pair since. The Portuguese coach has been stoking the flames again ahead of tonight's game, suggesting that Ferguson is scared of Porto.
"I hear everything that Ferguson says and I wonder what he is so worried about and why he is so afraid," he said. "His team are big and powerful, we have only a small budget and after this game will probably only have our league season to think about.
"Maybe for them it is a problem with the result. I am sure if they win 5-0 we won't hear any of these stupid things about diving, cheating or referees. I know what it is like to be in his situation. We are the top team in Portugal and we don't lose many games but when we do so against smaller teams, it is not easy to accept and it is not easy to live with.
"I do not agree with the things he is saying about my players and the Roy Keane situation is not our problem anymore, other than I had someone banned for three games, not one, for doing something which was not as bad as that.
"Maybe it is mind games on Ferguson's part. All I would say is I have a strategy too. Football is a game based on emotion and intelligence. Anyone can be clever, the trick is not to think the other guy is stupid."
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