‘Somos Uganda en 1960’. Lea #EnsusMarcasListosFuego de Felipe Rodríguez (@FRM87). ow.ly/O3kM50ZZWKx

🚨Sir Alex Ferguson on Lionel Messi saying the match against England left them physically and mentally weakened before the final against Spain: “I understand exactly what Lionel is saying, and I actually think people are missing the point. When you play a match like England before a final, people only look at the result. They see who won, who scored, who qualified. They don't see what the game takes from you. A semifinal can take something from a team. Your legs feel it. Your concentration feels it. Your emotions feel it. And sometimes, even when you win, you arrive at the final carrying things that nobody watching from the outside can see. That's why I believe Messi when he says that game made them weaker. People will say, ‘But they won against England, so how can it have hurt them?’ That's football. You can win a battle and still lose something for the war. I learned that over many years as a manager. Sometimes you leave a semifinal dressing room celebrating, music playing, players shouting, everybody delighted. But I would look at them and think, ‘How much have we got left?’ Because the final doesn't care about what you did three days earlier. The final asks you for everything again. And Spain were waiting. That's the part people forget. You don't get to recover emotionally just because you've reached the final. You don't get to tell your body, ‘We need another performance tomorrow, so forget what happened.’ The body doesn't negotiate like that. And Messi understands these things better than most footballers because he's played at the highest level for so long. He's felt the difference between arriving at a final fresh and arriving there carrying a semifinal in your legs. So when Leo says, ‘That game made us weaker,’ I don't hear an excuse. I hear a footballer explaining something that managers have understood for decades. The England match may have been a victory. But victory doesn't always mean you arrive at the next match stronger. Sometimes you arrive with fewer legs, less energy, less sharpness. And against a team like Spain, that small difference can become enormous. That's what makes finals so cruel. You can prepare for months. You can win the semifinal. You can believe you've done the hardest part. Then you walk into the final and discover that the hardest part was having enough left to do it all again. So yes, I believe Messi. If Lionel Messi tells me his team wasn't the same physically after that England match, I'm not going to sit in a studio and tell him he was wrong. He was on that pitch. He felt it. And sometimes the people who played the match understand the truth of it better than the people who watched it. That's football. You don't always lose a final because the other team was better. Sometimes, you arrive at the final already carrying the weight of the match you had to survive to get there.”

Here you go bbc.co.uk/sport/football/art…