2009 UEFA Champions League final

The 2009 UEFA Champions League final was played on 27 May 2009 at the Stadio Olimpico in Rome, Italy. The match determined the winners of the 2008–09 season of the UEFA Champions League, a tournament for the top football clubs in Europe. The match was won by Barcelona of Spain, who beat England's Manchester United 2–0. Samuel Eto'o opened the scoring in the 10th minute, and Lionel Messi added another goal 20 minutes from the end to earn Barcelona a historic treble of La Liga, the Copa del Rey and the Champions League, a feat never before achieved by a Spanish club. This was the only UEFA Champions League final where Lionel Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo have met, as well as the last match Ronaldo played for Manchester United until his return to the club in 2021. The match was refereed by Swiss referee Massimo Busacca.

This was Barcelona's third victory in the competition, 17 years after their first European Cup win in 1992. Manchester United went into the match as the competition's defending champions, the first defending champions to reach the final since Juventus in 1997. Manchester United also sought to be the first team to retain the European Cup since the Milan win in 1990. It was the fifth consecutive year that the final involved at least one English team. The Stadio Olimpico had hosted three previous Champions League finals, in 1977, 1984 and 1996.

Prequalified as the winners of the 2008–09 Champions League, Barcelona played 2008–09 UEFA Cup winners Shakhtar Donetsk in the 2009 UEFA Super Cup, and they represented UEFA at the 2009 FIFA Club World Cup. For winning the final, Barcelona won €7 million in prize money, and Manchester United received €4 million as runners-up.

Barcelona and Manchester United had previously faced each other nine times in European competitions: three times in the UEFA Cup Winners' Cup and six times in the UEFA Champions League. Of those nine matches, Manchester United had recorded three wins to Barcelona's two, with the remaining four matches finishing in draws. The only time that the two teams met in a final came in 1991, when they contested the 1991 Cup Winners' Cup final. The first meeting between the two sides came in the third round of the 1983–84 Cup Winners' Cup; Barcelona won the first leg at the Camp Nou 2–0, but Manchester United won the return leg 3–0 at Old Trafford to reach the semi-finals. That result marked Manchester United's biggest win over Barcelona; Barcelona's biggest win was a 4–0 home victory in the group stage of the 1994–95 Champions League. The most recent meeting between the teams came in the semi-finals of the 2007–08 Champions League, when United held Barcelona to a 0–0 draw at the Camp Nou before beating them 1–0 at Old Trafford. Despite their record against Manchester United, Barcelona had an overall winning record against English clubs, having won 20 and lost 15 of their 52 matches against English opposition. Manchester United, on the other hand, had a losing record against Spanish teams; they had lost 11 and won 10 of their 37 matches.

Both teams had won the UEFA Champions League before; Manchester United had three titles, while Barcelona had two. The most recent of these had come only the season before, when Manchester United beat Chelsea on penalties in the Luzhniki Stadium in Moscow. They won the first of their European Cups in 1968, beating Benfica 4–1 at Wembley Stadium, while their second was achieved in 1999 with a 2–1 win over Bayern Munich at Barcelona's home ground, the Camp Nou, in which they overturned a 1–0 Bayern lead with two goals in second-half injury time. Barcelona's first European Cup was won as recently as 1992, when they beat Sampdoria 1–0 after extra time at Wembley; their only other title came in 2006 with a 2–1 win over another English side, Arsenal. Prior to 2009, unlike Barcelona, Manchester United had never lost a European Cup final; Barcelona had lost three – in 1961, 1986 and 1994, to Benfica, Steaua București and Milan respectively.

Both teams went into the match as the champions of their respective countries – the first time that the final had been contested by domestic champions since 1999 – both winning with games to spare. Manchester United won their 11th Premier League title with a 0–0 draw at home to Arsenal on 16 May, while Barcelona were confirmed as La Liga champions for the first time in three years when Real Madrid lost to Villarreal on the same day. Both Manchester United and Barcelona were also looking for another Champions League title to cap a season in which they had won multiple trophies: Manchester United had already won four out of a possible seven trophies in 2008–09 and were playing for the possibility of becoming the third team to retain the European double (the domestic league and the European Cup) and win a treble along with the Football League Cup, while Barcelona were aiming to become the first Spanish club to win the continental treble of La Liga, the Copa del Rey and the UEFA Champions League. United also entered the final on a 25-match undefeated streak in the Champions League, a then-competition record.

The Stadio Olimpico in Rome was selected as the venue for the 2009 UEFA Champions League final at a meeting of the UEFA Executive Committee in Ljubljana, Slovenia, on 4 October 2006. The committee – who decided the venue for the 2008 final and the 2008 and 2009 UEFA Cup finals at the same meeting – based their decision on a number of factors, including stadium capacity, safety and security facilities, and accessibility.

The Stadio Olimpico had hosted three European Cup finals before 2009: the 1977 and 1984 finals, both of which were won by Liverpool – Liverpool beat Borussia Mönchengladbach 3–1 in 1977 before beating home side Roma 4–2 on penalties after the match finished 1–1 after extra time; the most recent final to be held at the Stadio Olimpico was the 1996 final, which Juventus also won 4–2 on penalties after a 1–1 draw with Ajax.