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Posted by Barry on 2009-12-12 @ 20:39:24 +0000

Bar Celona In Wolfsburg Quick Fire OR Hello Hello We Are The Wolfsburg Boys
Hi lads & gals, Enid Blyton here, NO it’s not a fantasy but a REAL multimedia story 

Quickfire 1 - the trip
Denmark 7 am breakfast and warm up for 2 days of RED heaven.
It was 7 hours drive from Aalborg to Wolfsburg quite uneventful although Barry, Michael, Casper & Jeppe [last minute for a sick stricken Barce Henrik] had many United songs and a drive through Hamburg, Hannover + weather consisting of cats & dogs before arriving at the hotel in North Wolfsburg at 14.00 hrs. Driving into Wolfsburg, a town owned by a 50.000 strong Volkswagen factory, all the town houses were supplemented by their own VW a fascinating & weird sight! They produce 3000 VW’s a day!! The Stadium where UNITED were to play was of course “The Volkswagen Arena” 

Quickfire 2 - before the game
15.00 hours in the bar at our hotel we ordered 4 black dunkel Schwarzbier which take around 10-15 minutes to serve! Windridge received a photo by mail and replied by mailing one word “Bigheads!” Yes Paul, they were most certainly BIG heads on ALL the beers   hehe
See them here - http://alturl.com/5rzv ‘mmmmmmm
Within the hour I met Graham from MUSCS London Branch at the Saloniki Bierbar Postrasse 1. Two ‘small’ beers later and a good Mike Dobbin memory chat we parted company. Regards to Pete Sharman outside the Salonkini, sorry Gerry I did not find John McGowan moving on …………… by now Michael Casper & Jeppe were all settled in at the main Wolfsburg bar on this trip, what else should they call a UNITED bar?
Yes: “BAR CELONA”, Porschestrasse 32 & who else should work there?
YES Nemanje Vidic!!! Se the youtube video to prove it! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OSuisTBuf8E

Steven Degorio and co joined us and we remained to match time and the 20 minute walk to Volkswagen Arena. Good atmosphere good singing & full of REDS!
Photos available here: http://picasaweb.google.dk/BJLeeming/WolfsburgVManchesterUnitedDec2009

Quickfire 3 - the match
Arriving at the ground now all 4 of us covered by green/red Wolfsburg/United scarves purchased by Casper. We had tickets in the stand with the Germans purchased on the net as a free for all the day after the draw! The other 1200 or so REDS were3 down in the far corner making a great noise!  
Main points of the game *** Michael Owen's hat-trick helped our reserves see off Wolfsburg er Nani's cross *** Germans well pissed off one minute before HT when United were jumping up and down celebrating a Nani cross to Owen opening goal *** Wolfsburg hit a well-deserved equaliser early in the 2nd half *** Obertan came on to beat three defenders to set up Owen to take the lead and Michael ran the whole of Wolfsburg half at the end for his 3rd *** Scholsey had a great game all his passing perfect culminating in a ball to Nani on the left who then crossed to the back post for Owen to nod in his second *** Wolfsburg could & should have scored more but didn’t, we took our chances & won 

Quickfire 4 - after the match
This was a culmination of the trip back to Bar Celona sing songs and full of REDS who had not left to Berlin, Hannover & elsewhere. A RED time was had by all. Taxi home to the hotel around 1- 2 am the rest of Wolfsburg was dead. Final beer in the bar at the hotel and a well earned sleep ready for the long drive back to Aalborg, Denmark.

Quickfire 5 - driving home Wednesday
Breakfast & checkout 10 am 8 hours trek home past the VW factory police on the border checking passports due to threats to Climate Change meetings in Copenhagen. We even managed time for a spot of Christmas shopping at the German border. We aarived home 18.00 hrs 48 hours after we had left.

Trip motto? Hello Hello We Are the Wolfsburg Boys
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7L4rkyVRS-s

See you next time RED Barry
Maddane barry@red11.org

Posted by PaulJ on 2009-12-10 @ 12:04:17 +0000

Das Corpse

One of the strengths of football as a spectator sport is the unpredictability which arises because of the rarity, importance and potential serendipity of a goal. Rarely has a bad United night been more widely predicted. The team travelled with one experienced, eligible defender in a squad reduced by fifteen injuries and a couple if ineligibilities. Wolfsburg had looked the classiest of our opponents in this group and you would expect a trip to the home of the Bundesliga champions to be a tricky one at the best of times.

Add to the mix their famously noisy and compact ground and their need to get a win to secure their qualification and there were those of us thinking that Ferguson had tried a trick too many playing such a young side against Besiktas and eschewing the chance of a much easier point. Just as there were those of us who could not believe that Michael Owen’s memorable contribution to the Manchester derby was the only such he would make in his stay at our club.

The side was as interesting as we knew it would have to be; Kuszczak in goal, the back three of Carrick, Fletcher and Evra; Gibson, Anderson and Scholes in the middle, Park and Nani on the flanks and Owen and Welbeck up front. For that team to secure a clear victory in such a match speaks volumes for team spirit but also if one is honest reflects Wolfsburg’s recent loss of confidence and a touch of fortune, not to mention the supernatural.

It had been pouring with rain all day and the pitch was sodden and heavy. The match was played in a fine spirit; this says something for the hosts, who must have been deeply disappointed. They proved capable of exploiting United’s weakness in defence but must be kicking themselves that they did not do this more boldly. Too often they resorted to long distance shots against Kuszczak; hardly his weak point, his best was a good early fingertip save from Makoto Hasabe. When they went around our flanks each of our defenders did his stuff to the best of his ability. Evra had a magnificent match.

Lady Luck appeared to bless us; only the draw next week will reveal the extent to which this is true. In the twelfth minute Hasebe raced through the centre and was stopped when Carrick took his legs. It should have been a penalty and an early goal in such circumstances would surely have put us in serious trouble. Six minutes later Andrea Barzagli was offered a free header from a right wing corner and put the ball over from six yards out; four minutes after that Zvjezdan Misimovic was offered a slightly more difficult header; he also missed the target.

The declared United plan was to attack our way out of trouble but for a while this did not materialise. Anderson and Nani were having difficulty finding each other, Welbeck was working hard on his own as Owen helped the team cause and we were reduced to a couple of long range efforts from Gibson. Nevertheless Park caused them some consternation, Nani began to threaten from the other side and on the half hour Anderson played a lovely ball through the middle pinpointed for Welbeck, whose touch and shot were deadly only to be ruled offside; it was close. Nani was right to try a fifty yard lob from the touchline when their goalkeeper got himself stranded but he is no Beckham or Giggs.

The scoring began with an excellent United build-up; Scholes and Owen exchanged in the middle, Scholes delivered the perfect ball to Nani on the left wing and Nani beat his man and put over an excellent cross for Owen, who utterly outwitted Marcel Schaefer to glance it into the net with his head from the six yard line; 44 minutes 1-0.

The home side imposed themselves after the break, lots of possession and looking the more likely to score, but United were not rocked back until the inexperience of the defence was exposed when Schaefer beat Park and crossed to where Edin Dzeko drove a fine powerful header high inside the near post; 56 minutes 1-1.

Now, for a while, United were chasing the ball and when we cleared it kept coming back but whether or not the Germans were ruled offside Kuszczak, without having to produce heroics, was up to anything they tried; fine, clean saves at the near post from Grafite and Dzeko. Both sides made double substitutions with twenty minutes to go; we took off Nani for Valencia. Before the match Nani would have been most peoples’ bet for the first United substitution given his reputation for underachievement but he had not done badly overall and had made the goal. We have not lost in Europe in the twenty one matches we have started with him.

We changed to a back four, Park now officially stationed at right back where he had been forced to play for the previous twenty five minutes but the key change was the introduction of Obertan for the tiring Welbeck. The more spiritual forces on the United bench had noted the Central European flavour of the home side and the presence of superstitious Latins and rightly predicted that the fear engendered by our cadaverour Frenchman would prove decisive.

Despite a pressure of sorts, Valencia doing just enough to put Ricardo Costa off his header, there seemed an air of calmness about the United performance and the back four arrangement looked better suited to the players. With ten minutes left Ashkan Dejagah and Dzeko both had half chances but we were at last able to present some threat, Anderson coming forward more powerfully and Owen willing to run into positions.

With the sun now long set and the defence unarmed with silver or garlic and forbidden to carry stakes, Nosferobertan came into his own. He and Owen and Evra worked triangularly up the left and won the throw which allowed Evra to give him back the ball. He collected it near the left corner with three opponents blocking his way, cut inside the area and weaved his dark spell, utterly hypnotising Costa and then calmly picking out his companion, the travelling dwarf. Far post, sidefoot, the home crowd as silent as a graveyard; 83 minutes 2-1.

Owen would have had his hat trick within the minute had he controlled Anderson’s through ball more confidently, then Valencia put him through and his chip was insufficient to clear goalkeeper Diego Benaglio. The home crowd awoke from its stupor with the news that Besiktas had equalised; now all they needed was a draw. Kuszczak confidently handled Christian Gentner’s shot and Misimovic’s free kick and then as added time began Wolfsburg attacked in numbers, Karim Ziani crossed and all Sascha Riether had to do was sidefoot it in from three feet.

He made no connection, Owen unmarked on the left wing was waving frantically and although Scholes’ ball was misdirected our cadaverous Count changed its direction with a touch and Owen, aware of the rules because he went to Grammar School and inches our side of the half way line, was onside and away. Those dwarvish legs of his might be ageing, there might have been three chasing defenders, but he blew away the mists of time, ran forty five yards and benefiting from his recent practice, this time chipped Benaglio perfectly. Beneath the diamond sky with one hand waving free he ran far from the twisted reach of crazy sorrow, a grinning schoolboy with renewed hope of a ticket to South Africa. His motives were irrelevant, he had proved me wrong to United’s advantage. He had worked hard, contributed to the team and collected himself a hat trick in a match that nearly mattered; 91 minutes 3-1.

We proceed as group winners. Wolfsburg’s hopes appear to be dead but death is not always as final as it seems in this part of the world. They will await with hope the outcome of the EUFA hearing into the alleged CSKA drug use and their hopes of reinstatement may yet rise like the undead. Knowing Germans, they’ll probably go on and win the thing.

Paul James

Posted by Bill on 2009-12-08 @ 21:28:05 +0000

Michael Owen scored a famous hat-trick as Manchester United made light of their injury woes to record a memorable win over German champions Wolfsburg.

A measure of United's achievement was that it represented only a third win in 10 attempts against German opposition in Europe. The fact they did it with over a dozen key men missing made the feat all the more remarkable.

It was Owen's first three-timer since he joined the Old Trafford side in the summer - and his first for anyone since 2005 - and will undoubtedly go down as one of his finest on a night when United had their backs against the wall.

The result confirms a seeding in the knockout round draw a week on Friday which in itself does not guarantee easier opposition but at least ensured Old Trafford will host a second leg rather than a first.

An already complicated qualification picture had become even more murky following confirmation earlier in the day that two CSKA Moscow players had tested positive for banned substances following their meeting with United at Old Trafford last month.

As it left the Russians facing expulsion at a UEFA disciplinary hearing on December 17, it raised the possibility of United having to appeal for their top-spot status, or Wolfsburg begging to maintain interest in the competition until the day before the last round of 16 draw.

Sir Alex Ferguson knew the best way of avoiding such anxiety was to win.

Yet to achieve that would be a monumental feat given he landed in Germany without 14 recognised senior players, including eight defenders.

United had prospered from weakened situations before. But never had they been so badly depleted.

Michael Carrick was handed a sweeper's role, with Darren Fletcher and Patrice Evra flanking the England international as Ferguson abandoned his traditional back four.

As the highly-rated Edin Dzeko was part of Wolfsburg's strikeforce, statisticians were busy spending their pre-match discussions wondering if United were set for a record European defeat.

As it turned out, a repeat of their five goal hammering by Sporting Lisbon in 1964, or even a 4-0 spanking by Barcelona in the early Champions League days when the controversial 'three foreigners' rule handicapped a Red Devils side good enough to have won the domestic double the previous spring, never looked likely.

Zvjezdan Misimovic headed a good chance over and Tomasz Kuszczak made a couple of decent saves to deny Makoto Hasebe.

But with a bit of good fortune, namely when Carrick slid in on Hasebe and appeared to bring the wide-man down inside the area without making contact with the ball, and a lot of perseverance, they survived without conceding a goal.

A scoreless opening period would have been well received by Ferguson. Owen's goal made it a perfect opening 45 minutes.

The former Liverpool star has probably not had the impact hoped for when he joined United in the summer and his hopes of going to the World Cup next summer appear to have receded to non-existent.

But Owen remains a master at finding space. And when Nani drifted over a cross from the left 60 seconds before the break, he had evaded the home defence for long enough to give him time to steer his header into the far corner.

But the job was only half done and Ferguson must have known a Wolfsburg bombardment was coming.

Having attacked mostly down their right - trying to expose the least defensively competent wing-back, Nani - Wolfsburg changed their point of attack, knowing Park Ji-sung was not being protected by an orthodox defender.

Marcel Schafer had already fizzed over one cross from the left that Carrick had smashed clear when he had another go at picking out Dzeko.

The Bosnian was astute enough to get between Carrick and Evra, so when the cross arrived perfectly in the centre of the six-yard box, Dzeko rose unchallenged to send a textbook header flying past Kuszczak.

With over half an hour remaining, it appeared United's defensive heroics would be in vain.

But some sturdy defending kept Wolfsburg at bay and when substitute Gabriel Obertan glided into the home box and drilled a cross to the far post, Owen was waiting to tap home.

The qualification picture was suddenly, for United at any rate, much clearer.

Owen's third, when he streaked through after Wolfsburg had wasted their final chance, merely added a notable footnote.

Wolfsburg 1-3 Man Utd R
(HT 0-1)
Dzeko 56
Owen 44
Owen 83
Owen 90+1

Wolfsburg
01 Benaglio
04 Schafer
05 Ricardo Costa
20 Riether
43 Barzagli
07 Josue
10 Misimovic
13 Hasebe (Ziani 72)
25 Gentner
09 Dzeko
23 Grafite (Dejagah 72)
Substitutes
12 Lenz, 06 Simunek, 16 Johnson, 17 Madlung, 19 Pekarik, 15 Ziani, 24 Dejagah

Man Utd
29 Kuszczak
03 Evra
08 Anderson
13 Park
16 Carrick
17 Nani (Valencia 74)
18 Scholes
24 Fletcher
28 Gibson
07 Owen
19 Welbeck (Obertan 74)
Substitutes
12 Foster, 45 Oliver Gill, 25 Valencia, 42 Eikrem, 43 James, 26 Obertan, 46 Stewart

Ref: Kuipers
Att: 29,000

sportinglife.com / bbc.co.uk

Posted by Barry on 2009-09-15 @ 6:18:45 +0000

Quickfire match report when I arrive home

Email Webmaster Barry Leeming barry@red11.org