The crack of the MJ, which collapsed in the Milan Champions semi-final, echoed echoing to its hometown, and at the Eastlands it was met exclusively with approval. Especially on the eve of the Manchester derby. The confrontation between United and City, however, is not considered the most charismatic and legendary in Britain and for more than a century has been exploiting the same primordially uncomplicated plot - the outskirts against the center.
The traditional message of the “citizens” fans to the opponents is something like: “You yourself are not from Manchester, and Old Trafford is yours outside the city limits.” The other side condescendingly nods at the latest achievements of the teams and on match days invariably hangs out a banner on the podium indicating the time during which the rival neighbors can not win a single trophy (this time the inscription read - 31 years). There were a variety of pages in the history of club relationships, from the bloody ones (for example, the skirmishes of George Best with Glyn Perdow or Roy Keane with Alfa Inge Holand) to the extremely dramatic (say, the goal of the legendary United player Denis Low at the goal of his native team in the game for City, which led to the departure of Manchester United from the elite and the depressive end of Lowe's career).
This time, to warm up interest in the match at the City of Manchester, it was not necessary to climb into the wilds of the derby - the intrigue floated on the surface, and not just any, but champion. The alignment was extremely difficult: Manchester United needed to win in order to be able to become a champion on this tour, or at least not to lose, so as not to put their fate on the line in the upcoming match with Chelsea.
“City”, in addition to always wanting to annoy a neighbor, really wanted to avoid the Premier League record-breaking record in terms of the number of goals scored at home for the season and the length of the home goalless series - before the start of the match, “townspeople” had almost 11 game hours showing hospitality without upsetting the goalkeepers rivals. However, the aspirations of the fans of "MS" football fortune this season has become accustomed to ignore - the "glorious" achievement in the end fell.
Before the match, Sir Alex Ferguson talked a lot about the need to focus exclusively on the upcoming game, forget about Milan and not recall Chelsea. The trainer promptly carried out the repair of the car that had crashed and replaced a couple of parts in it. The place in the center of defense was expectedly taken by Rio Ferdinand, who recovered from his injury, and Alan Smith reappeared in the attack along with Wayne Rooney, marking at least a formal return to the usual tactical arrangement 4-4-2. And in fact - it’s not with the current “City” to play three oporniks.
And the current “City” is a very strange team. Recently, the “townspeople” seemed to have concluded an agreement with the media on an almost exclusive supply of news, which is not directly related to the game. Coach Stuart Pearce has been going to resign for several months without dividing himself between the club and the youth team. The owners of the "City" continue to catch up with fog, not wanting to decide on the sale of the club. Well, the violent Joey Barton again proved himself: first he sharply criticized the game of the team and its newcomers in the press, and then he attacked personally one of them - Usman Dabo. True, he did not poke a cigarette in the eye of the Frenchman - he definitely matured over the past three years.
By the position of the excommunicated Pierce until the end of the season, Barton was replaced by young Michael Johnson and the whole match successfully played the role of the invisible man. But his namesake Ball immediately fell into the spotlight. The left-back of the hosts began with the fact that in a very original way he decided to convey to Cristiano Ronaldo the atmosphere of a real English derby - he simply stepped on the Portuguese who was lying.
Ball’s boorish trick was perhaps the most striking event starting thirty minutes. The first dangerous blow was delivered by the “townspeople”: Emil Mpenza powerfully beat from the penalty area, but hit the goalkeeper directly. Well, not Kaka - what to do. The voice-over voice “Edwin van der Sar, the future hero of the meeting” was not heard - at that moment no one knew about it yet.
United started slowly, with a sense of restored dignity. The guests quickly identified two main vectors of threat to someone else's goal - standards and long casts from the depth of field behind the backs of the defenders. In the first direction, Vidic and Ferdinand worked - both were marked by hits on the crossbar, however, the Serb did it in violation of the rules. Cristiano Ronaldo, Smith and Rooney once opened up to long-distance programs, but not one of them brought promising moments to mind.
And in the 33rd minute, Ball again took the floor. Clearly partial to Ronaldo, the Englishman flunked the Portuguese in his own penalty box, meaningless and merciless for the City. Cristiano himself realized a penalty - a torn run, Isaksson - to the right, the ball - to the left. Given the statistics of "citizens", it was almost a victory.
The next almost 50 minutes of the match on the field did not happen anything outstanding, and at times simply nothing. United had neither the strength nor the desire to squeeze the enemy at the Stakhanov pace, and the meager attacking capabilities of the City did not allow the hosts to create regular sharpness at the gates of the Premier League leader. The guests had more control over the ball, but, without scoring a second goal, in the end they could not protect themselves from surprises.
Ten minutes before the final whistle, the very same Michael Ball from oblivion burst into the United penalty box and with energetic movements literally forced the phlegmatic Wes Brown to foul on himself. The penalty kick was taken by Darius Wassell and ... that there are forces struck into the undefeated knee of van der Sarah. “City” ruined the second one in two home games. Realizing that the removal of such a powerful curse of their modest forces was not enough, the owners resigned themselves. The remaining minutes were marked by the sultry dance of Heinze with a ball and a corner flag and a couple of family tricks of Paul Dikov, why did Pierce release it for a replacement.
As a result, the victory of the guests 1: 0. Not the most spectacular victory in the far from brightest derby was painted for United by the summer sun and the tournament position in gilded tones and contrasted so sharply with the gloomy fiasco of Milan. Now the chances of the Mankunians to miss the next and so long-awaited champion title are very small. Even if Chelsea win all three of the remaining matches, including an in-person duel, Ferguson's team will only have to draw in the last round at Old Trafford with West Ham.
In such a situation, only superstition can prevent accepting congratulations. Well, “City” will have to enter an era of change against the grim background of anti-records and triumphs of its neighbor. And the first thing in the offseason at the “City of Manchester” is to invite a priest. Perhaps this will become a good symbol of a worthy new life.
Manchester City - Manchester United - 0: 1 (0: 1)
Goal: 0: 1 - Cristiano Ronaldo (33, penalty).
Unrealized penalty: Wassell (81, goalkeeper).
MANCHESTER CITY: Isaksson, Ball, R. Dunne, Disten, Onuoha, M. Johnson, Hamann (Sun Jihai, 46), Ireland (Dikov, 69), Beasley (Sinclair, 61), E. Mpenza, Wassell.
MANCHESTER UNITED: van der Sar, Brown, R. Ferdinand, Vidic, Heinze, Giggs, Carrick, Scholes, Cristiano Ronaldo, Smith (Fletcher, 73), Rooney (O'Shea, 87).
Warnings: M. Johnson (74), van der Sar (80), Dickov (82), Giggs (84).
5 May. City of Manchester, 15.45.
Judge: Rob Styles (Hampshire).