The only team in the world capable of stopping Lionel Messi and Barcelona are Manchester United.
They may be capable of an upset but I don't think they will win what promises to be a fascinating final for one simple reason - Messi.
Barcelona are a very, very good team, superb, but my fellow Argentine takes them to a different level. Spain won the World Cup and Barca have so many of their line-up but Messi is by far their best player.
He can be unstoppable. He is the Special One.
You cannot even think about man-marking him. It is useless to ask a midfield marker or a tough defender to follow him all over the pitch - it won't work. It will have to be a team effort for the entire game.
It is incredible to think that there was a physical problem with Messi as a boy and that they thought he would never be able to take the physical demands of football.
The fact that he has scored so many goals this season is simply incredible as he is not an authentic centre-forward. He is the archetypal No 10, like a Maradona, Pele or a Bobby Charlton.
The only player you can compare with Messi is Maradona and in many ways they are very similar.
I thought that Diego would never be surpassed, nor Pele, but no longer. Now I believe Messi will become the No1 player of all time. Sport has improved - tennis, boxing, athletics - and sportsmen move on. The modern game helps goalscorers and ball players. The pitches are better, the boots are better, the rules have been altered to favour forwards and the players look after their bodies better.
You wonder just how much better Maradona or Pele would have been if they had the advantage of such advancements.
Messi simply needs to carry on the way he is and recognition as all-time No1 will not be long arriving.
The big difference is that pressures were less intense for Pele and Maradona.
Messi is always under pressure and has to play incredibly high-intensity games all of the time, the Champions League being the perfect example.
I certainly do not subscribe to the argument most widely held against Messi that he needs to be a World Cup winner like Maradona and Pele before he can be the greatest ever player.
George Best never even played in the World Cup but he is still recognised as one of the greats, Alfredo di Stefano never won the World Cup and Ryan Giggs has never played in one.
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Ossie Ardiles is an ambassador for Football 40, which launches its first public tournament at Craven Cottage on Sunday, kick off 3pm. It's Spurs v Arsenal and Chelsea v Fulham, with the winners playing in the final. See www.football 40.com
