Terrace Talk

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On a warm European evening, Manchester United did just enough to grind out a 2-0 victory over hosts AS Roma at Il Stadio Olimpico. It certainly wasn’t the beautiful football United fans have come to expect from their side, but the result did just enough to put a firm foot in the door for qualification into the Champions League semi finals.

It was clear from the onset of the match that Sir Alex Ferguson and his coaching staff were fully intent on trying to beat Roma at their own game. United fielded a side which did not feature a clear striker and essentially would require their players to push into advanced attacking roles and then interchange up front in the forward position. AS Roma’s manager, Luciano Spalletti, has refined a similar 4-6-0 tactic over the years with great success, winning the Italian Cup last season, and his club currently sit in 2nd position in Serie A. Without a traditional striker up front, Roma play with numerous attacking players that interchange, stretching the defense and forcing defensive mistakes through variety in attack. It is a very open and attacking style of football which is quite wonderful to watch when all goes as planned. Sir Alex has used a variation of this tactical formation to achieve great success in the last few seasons, culminating in the absolute decimation of Aston Villa over the weekend.

In this most recent encounter, Manchester United dominated possession for the first half against Roma, but failed to create scoring opportunities in the final third. Much of the credit must be given to the Roma defense for limiting the contributions of Cristiano Ronaldo by closing off passing lanes in the midfield and trying to physically intimidate their English opponents. It’s the type of football Serie A fans are very used to seeing on a weekly basis and has helped bring Roma to second in the league. Roma had created a number of scoring opportunities up to that point with solid counter attacks keeping United’s defenders off balance. Mirko Vucinic was the henchman leading the charge as he consistently outpaced Rio Ferdinand to the ball and created first touches for his teammates that almost opened put United behind within the opening half hour. Roma were very unlucky not to have capitalized on these passages of play, and were particularly profligate at the beginning of the second half.

Roma’s window of opportunity presented itself in the form of a knee injury to Nemanja Vidic’ from a fairly innocuous challenge. While tangling with Vucinic, Vidic seemed to have twisted his knee when he landed awkwardly after an aerial challenge. While the severity of the injury is unknown, the fact that Vidic was able to walk to the cart which carried him off the pitch might indicate that the injury isn’t as severe as initially suspected.

“We hope it’s not serious,” said Ferguson. “We hope it’s a nerve injury but we can’t be sure right now. He will have a scan in the morning and we will know for sure after that. I pray and hope it’s not serious because he’s a vital part of our team.”

I’d guess that either a Grade I or Grade II Ligament injury occurred. With a Grade I injury, it is mild in nature. The ligament either has micro-tearing or slight stretching; however the overall integrity of the ligament is preserved. The ligament hurts if stressed but is stable. Layoff time would be around one to two weeks. With a Grade II ligament injury, there is partial disruption of the ligament. Painful to stress, there is detectable laxity but the ligament has an eventual endpoint. Recovery time would typically take three to four weeks. ( MCL Tear Treatment - Surgery for MCL Tears )

Injuries aside, the highlight of the game came when United went up 1-0 in the 38th minute off a lovely headed finish by Ronaldo who converted a Paul Scholes chipped cross. With Roma muting the Portuguese striker for long periods, in truth Cristiano was only biding his time. He was not to be denied. Seeing space to run into, Ronaldo sprinted 40 meters, bolting into the box and flying in the way of the cross, crashing into a defender in mid air and still finishing with an inch perfect header. In the Stadio Olimpico, Ronaldo truly embraced the spotlight by adding his 36th goals in all competitions, with 40 goals very much in sight.

The 2nd half featured a strong performance by Roma, in trying to equalize. They clearly realized that they needed to score a goal to have any chance to progress in the competition, but faced with a heroic performance from Edwin Van der Sar, and some poor finishing, they will go to Manchester dejected and empty handed. The Dutchman returned just in time from his groin injury, and his experience and numerous world class saves preserved the clean sheet for United. With so much talk of the youngsters leading the charge for United this season, it was quite refreshing to have one of the elder statesmen of the team shine so impressively in a major match.

Manchester United sucked the life out of their opposition by scoring their second goal, against the run of play, through a Wayne Rooney strike from a mix up in the Roma penalty box. Wes Brown put a long range cross across the face of goal, which was headed back towards Wayne Rooney by Ji Sung Park. The Roma goalkeeper, Doni, should have held on to his interception, but instead fumbled into the path of Wayne Rooney. The keeper was impeded his own defender, Christian Panucci, who tripped over Doni and helped the free ball fall to Englishman. Rooney can officially be called the Italian assassin, having scored six goals in seven matches against Italian teams.

Rio Ferdinand’s shaky start to the match was eclipsed by the poise he demonstrated in the closing moments. He showed impressive leadership, constantly communicating with his teammates and stamping down the authority required of a captain in such a high stakes fixture. He is clearly the captain for United’s foreseeable future and if Capello was smart, he would keep the armband with Ferdinand.

While Rio was controlling the game on the pitch, the Roman security was controlling the crowd in the stands. It was a great relief to all involved that traveling Manchester United fans were finally able to enjoy a match on Italian soil without violence. The Italian police and the Greater Manchester Police should be congratulated for successfully collaborating and effectively executing a sound plan to achieve an uneventful trip to Rome.

While many fans are describing United’s victory as one of the great European performances, the reality is that the overall performance was by no means pretty. Ronaldo and Rooney showed again that they are capable of stepping up in big matches and the critics’ theory is now almost laughable in retrospect. They now have four more match successes to go in the Champions League before Manchester United can be formally tagged, the “Best team in Europe.”


(Photo credit should read VINCENZO PINTO/AFP/Getty Images)