Phrases like: ''On the night of the Wembley final [against Barcelona] we felt we were a million miles away from them'' seem to me soccer's version of ''realpolitik'' - an unwelcome acceptance of how the hard facts actually are. And Scholes added that ''you have to hold your hands up and say they [Barca] were better''. ''You don't like admitting it, but this time they were and two years ago they were. ''The manager will have been thinking about the game all summer, working out how he can avoid that sort of thing happening again.'' Patently Scholes has too.

Another recent retiree, Gary Neville, added his couple of cents (I'm sure it wasn't sense?) to the debate when he blithely predicted that: ''Next season will be tougher for them [Barca] because United and other teams will have learned. ''I think we will progress and we will get there. I think the likes of Man United and Real Madrid will get past Barcelona in the next two years.'' Leaving aside the fact that Barca has beaten Real Madrid on aggregate 20-5 in their past nine meetings and holds a 5-1 margin over United in their past two Champions League cup finals (so evidently the gap ain't closing that quickly, Gary), it's wonderful to hear the English champions gritting their teeth and setting the ''seek and destroy'' sights on Pep Guardiola's team. I've spoken to players from that United squad at Wembley, who talk with a kind of reverence for the football that Barcelona plays and the ease with which the Catalans can casually destroy any other team in the world if given even a couple of millimetres of space. But, to a man, their attitude is: ''How can we haul them back?'' or ''we are building again and Sir Alex Ferguson will not rest until he pushes us up to their level''.

It all meshes with what Ferguson, a proud man who hates losing but who treated defeat in London that night with dignity and a searing forward vision, said post-match at Wembley. ''We don't get to train our kids enough in this country, we have a limited time to work on their skills because, by the rules, we can't train with them for more than 90 minutes per day,'' was his major complaint. Since then he has tried to buy fast, young, technically competent players because Barca has exposed that United moves, thinks and plays the ball in a pedestrian manner by comparison. David de Gea is young and very, very raw but talented. If he's given time to soak up valuable experience, there is a terrific, competitive, athletic keeper waiting to develop there. Ashley Young is a talent in need of being pushed and prodded into pressure situations where excellence and relentless hunger are demanded, not asked for nicely as was the case at Villa.

United has tried to buy the brilliant and mercurial Alexis Sanchez but won't get him because he's in love with Barcelona. How do I know? Because the kid won't shut up about how his only destination, if he leaves Udinese, must be the Camp Nou. Sir Alex Ferguson is pushing very hard for Sami Nasri, a tough, talented, quick-footed thorn in his side when playing for Arsenal. And, like Alexis, a footballer who could easily fit in at the Camp Nou. In summary, everyone who is anyone at United has been burning with plans, ambitions, hunger and hard work since the final whistle blew on their humiliation in the last Champions League final. That's as it should be.

But what of the other club that genuinely shapes up as a rival, one which should be easing up behind Barca in order to sink its claws in and devour it this season? Real Madrid remains a club in search of an identity. And some commonsense. Perhaps the way to differentiate between United and Real Madrid is to let you know a little bit of what has been going through Cristiano Ronaldo's mind. Towards the end of the season, during late April and most of May, I spent a lot of time talking to players and technical staff at Manchester United in preparation for the big final against Barca. What I found was that Ronaldo was in regular contact with three of them and also with others around the Carrington training ground I don't know.

Ronaldo was often on the phone, or would text, in order to get off his chest how frustrating a club he has found Madrid in comparison to United. The in-fighting at the Bernabeu, the outrageously partisan media in Spain, the enormous and confusing chain of command at Madrid, the lack of major trophies, the defensive, counter-attack mentality that his coach José´ Mourinho used against Barcelona in the Champions league semi-final. Ronaldo would even phone up the United kitman Albert Morgan for a natter. In summary, he kept telling his former club mates that his ''grass-might-be-greener'' dream of playing for Real Madrid is a disappointment. He finds Madrid less well run corporately than United, he feels far more exposed to media dog-fights than he did in England (''is he happy?'', ''should he pass more?'', ''has Ronaldo had a bust-up with Iker Casillas?'') and above all, he misses the 100 per cent authority that his old boss and, let's face it, friend Sir Alex commands at United.

Several of the people who noted to me that Ronaldo was ''homesick'' for Old Trafford added that he would often use the phrase ''if it wasn't for the horrible weather over there then I'd actually consider …'' But he stays to fight on and the question now is - is Madrid finally getting its attention properly on the prize? Like United is doing? Jorge Valdano, World Cup winner and once an excellent coach, has been sacked because he was Mourinho's arch enemy. In Fabio Coentrao, Madrid has added a superior left-back to the one, Marcelo, who cost it two of the three goals Barca scored in the Champions League semi final. But the lunacy rumbles on at Madrid, with Casillas not only being forced to use a media conference in Beijing this week to deny that he might be replaced as club captain by Ronaldo, but also to admit that he was unsure enough of the crazy rumour that he had phoned Mourinho … just to check!

How each of these two grand institutions chooses to close the gap on FC Barcelona is up to them and it will be absolutely fascinating to discover whether, as Neville happily predicts, United is on an upswing and Barca won't be able to maintain its dominance for two more seasons. Personally I doubt that, but those of us who are a sucker for watching the pack try to hunt down the alpha male will be tuned in. The two contenders, United and Madrid, have their chance to take a shot at the champion's chin in next to no time. United is only three weeks from its first attempt at revenge, against Barca, in Washington. And then, exactly a fortnight later, comes the first part of the two-leg Spanish Supercup, which starts with Madrid meeting its bitter Catalan rival at the Bernabé´u on August 14 and concludes with the return leg at the Camp Nou on August 17. Scholes, Ferguson, Mourinho, Ronaldo and Neville - all of them have their chips on their shoulders about Barcelona, their plans about how to ''knock them off their effing perch''. But have they had the time to assimilate what they each learnt while being taken apart by the Spanish and European champion?

It strikes me that the only way for them to overtake a side so far ahead would be to abandon UEFA rules, merge the clubs, pick the best 11 players from the two squads and then try to find weaknesses in Guardiola's team. Now that I'd pay to watch.