The gambler in Sir Alex Ferguson won through. His forebear Sir Matt Busby was "always going on about not being boring", Sir Bobby Charlton told us last week, remembering the old man's exhortations to his players to serve up something special for the factory workers of Manchester.
And so it was that Ferguson stayed true to the United principles, played Javier Hernandez as well as Wayne Rooney and – though he had declined the chance to put it this way in his pre-match press conference – met fire with fire. "We're Man United," to quote a popular current refrain. "We do what we want."
There was another refrain doing the rounds on the Tube at 6pm. The Catalan fans had cottoned on to a Stretford End chorus and gave us a rendition of "He goes by the name of Leo Messi". The challenge was how Rooney might be a match-winner as well as a mine-sweeper, making up the numbers in midfield. Extra carbs for lunch seemed to be the only obvious answer.
Ferguson had been here before. He went for 4-4-2 on the wet May night in Feyenoord 20 years ago when United lifted the European Cup-Winners' Cup at the expense of Johan Cruyff's Barcelona and on that occasion it was Brian McClair who did the double-tasking. Not quite the same weight of responsibility as Rooney, it should be said. Barcelona were not too obsessed with lifting the Cup-Winners' Cup, the weakest of the three European competitions, and Ferguson also had Mark Hughes, whose goal remains one of United's most sublime in Europe. But it mattered to Manchester.
The carbs didn't look nearly enough here as the clock ticked towards 35 minutes. The sky above Wembley was blue with cotton-wool clouds but United's prospects looked black – thunderously black. Messi wore the most garish football boots on the pitch but United's strategies for detecting him never amounted to much more than pointing to a team-mate and casting nervous glances over their shoulder. His diagonal, disorientating dummy run was integral to Barcelona's opening goal.
It is important to appreciate the depth of desolation at that moment to know the value of the way Rooney dragged things back. Until then, his attacking contributions had been limited to two hopeful crosses from the left – ironically the flank where he was so unhappy to have been stranded by Ferguson in Rome two years ago. But Fabio da Silva pressed from a short throw-in, Rooney nicked possession and so began his four-touch interchange of the ball with Michael Carrick and Ryan Giggs which he wrapped up with that sumptuous finish.
And when Rooney slid across the grass on his knees, it was noticeable that the primeval scream which has become such a part of him was absent. He was the calmest soul in the house and he seemed to be saying yes, these were the heights to which he could rise when the size of the task and the occasion were Olympian.
He has waited a long time to prove this. It was his fellow Liverpudlian Jamie Carragher who observed yesterday that the world's greatest matches demand signature performances and after two poor World Cups and two forgettable Champions' League finals, Rooney was lacking something to compare with Steven Gerrard, Istanbul and 2005.
There was also something different about the Rooney who kept ploughing on and on, through the creeping sense of torture which Messi created. We've seen so much of his fury that it's easy to assume he is hard-wired to boil out of control when the rub of the green has gone – but far from it.
A moment just beyond the hour distilled the impression. Rooney, back foraging for the ball deep in midfield, cast an arcing pass out to Valencia, ran into the box to receive the cross and when it was overhit, thundered out to the far corner to retrieve it and send Patrice Evra back in. Here was the sole United player in control of his destiny; the sole United player Pep Guardiola would have been proud to call one of his own.
His face was crimson with the effort by the end and the sight of him called to mind Sir Bobby's description of how Busby had forced his Wembley warriors of 1968 to run up and down the Blackpool sand dunes in readiness for the sultry London night against Benfica – because "we might one day have to call on our bodies to respond". Rooney did respond. His was the sole spirit befitting the memory of the Wembley night when United did leave as European champions.
No comments:
Post a Comment