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What conjuration!
Before Tuesday we had played fourteen games at Old Trafford against German clubs. We won the first four and the last five (though for sure the 3-2 against Bayern in the 2010 quarter final did not feel like a win). Only Borussia Dortmund (in the 1997 semi-final) and Bayern Munich (the 2001 quarter final) have beaten us at home, each by a single goal. We had played Bayer 04 Leverkusen four times home and away without losing a match though we lost the 2002 semi-final on away goals. The last time they came was the opening match of the 2002-03 group stage when we took the risk of selecting goalkeeper Ricardo, who used to give away a penalty in each match he played and only sometimes save it. That night Jan Šimák obliged by blasting the gift over the bar and Juan Sebastián Verón scored our first and made the second for Ruud van Nistelrooy in a two-nil win.
Bayer claim no working class roots, which is ironic because they were formed as a works team and are based in an old industrial city. They aspire to a family-friendly model, which is ironic because they are sponsored by a company whose wartime activities have been questioned and they became the first German club to enjoy the support of fanatical Ultras. The Bayer Leverkusen Sports Club was formed for employees of the Bayer drug company in 1904 and it took until 1979 for the footballers to make it to the Bundesliga. They won the 1988 UEFA Cup but remained a mid-table club until the arrival of Reiner Calmund in 1990, whose shrewd signings from across the recently demolished Berlin Wall lifted them to the status of perennial losers; they won the German Cup of 1993 but that remains their only triumph at national level. It was followed by four league runners-up spots in six years, the most spectacular being in 2000 when they needed a draw in the last match to clinch the title but an own goal by Michael Ballack triggered defeat, and in 2002 when they blew a five point lead in the final three matches and lost the cup final and the Champions League final as well, earning them the sobriquet “Neverkusen”. They were third last year in the Bundesliga and hold that position in this season’s table. They are managed by Sami Hyypiā, whose last appearance at Old Trafford was in a triumphant Liverpool side.
Meteorological sanity had returned and Manchester was familiarly cold and drizzly. If this offered an advantage the general opinion was that we needed one against a side with a reputation for lethality on the counter-attack. It took the match a while to settle down but when it did it was difficult to reconcile this authoritative, controlling United with the error-ridden side which had played on Saturday. Though Bayer looked smooth when they came forward, they were pinned back and starved of the ball. It was a tactical triumph for David Moyes, the selection of Chris Smalling at right back standing out from the earliest moments as an inspired decision against a team fielding eight players over six feet tall.
Our players ran for each other; Marouane Fellaini picking up the pieces and keeping the ball moving, Wayne Rooney as fluent as he has been through the battles, sieges and fortunes that he has passed from year to year, even from his boyish days. Bayer struggled; Son Heung-Min impeded Rooney, Stefan Reinartz was lucky to get only a yellow card for high studs on Michael Carrick. Robin van Persie toyed with Giulio Donati at the left corner flag and from this situation Carrick’s pass was headed on by Shinji Kagawa to Patrice Evra. His cross found Rooney eight yards out and the volley hit the ground and reared into the net. ‘Twas pitiful how the Germans complained. Evra had been marginally offside. Antonio Valencia, at least two yard offside had impeded goalkeeper Bernd Leno on the line. All this under the nose of the fourth official. ‘Twas wondrous pitiful; the goal stood; 22 minutes 1-0.
Rooney’s free kick shaved the post and just before half time Valencia found Kagawa with a cross and the shot was fortuitously deflected by Can. At the break the only shadow was van Persie, not because he had cut back Kagawa’s pass when he might have scored and had shot when team mates were better placed, but because he had stood nose to nose with referee Damir Skomina to yell at him. Yellow was tonight his lucky colour.
We seemed in control as the second half began but Bayer were getting more of the ball and Rio occasioned some excitement with his failure to deal with Son’s chip. Luckily de Gea smothered Sidney Sam’s shot. Wherefore we speak of most disastrous chances; Ömer Toprak, trying to be too clever on the slippery surface, fell over leaving Rooney with the ball. He took it around the goalkeeper but could not decide between shooting into the empty net or cutting it back to van Persie who could hardly have missed, so he bisected the choice with a shot which was not going in and which van Persie could not possibly reach. A few minutes later Sam broke up our attack by robbing Evra and they came forward. Sam’s and Son’s shots were blocked but when Sam slipped the ball back to Simon Rolfes his took a deflection off Carrick which guided it inside the post. From control of the match we were back to square one; 54 minutes 1-1.
Carrick produced a pass for van Persie, who showed great control but was robbed by Toprak’s intervention and for five minutes the insolent foe in the far corner stand taunted us and our team stuttered. Even when its owner is having a bad night, however, talent can change any sporting contest. Carrick gave the ball to Valencia who ran directly at the two men covering him as they backed off. In the corner of the area he cut the ball back to where van Persie had manufactured a yard of space. It was too high for comfort and behind the Dutchman; no matter, he leant back and hooked it in with his less favoured foot. Only upon examination of the replay did it become evident that goalkeeper Leno did not have to be impeded to let them in over his head; 59 minutes 2-1.
Bayer looked broken and Hyypiā brought on Lars Bender to try to fix it. Donati fouled van Persie and Rooney’s kick was charged down. Van Persie, Rooney and Valencia swept the field diagonally left to right but Valencia’s shot hit Sebastian Boenisch. With Bender on, Stefan Kiessling looked less isolated and he was nearly through but Rio this time stood his ground forcefully; even so, Bender’s follow-up was crisp and through Nemanja Vidić’s legs. De Gea not only made a tricky save look dead easy but spotted the space up front and launched the ball. Toprak and Emir Spahić jumped together and the latter’s touch merely fell to the marauding Rooney, once more a finder-out of occasions and hungry to atone. This he did, rifling it inside Leno’s near post for his two hundredth United goal. Thus a man who has given us for our pains a world of sighs is lined up on that rare number behind only Bobby Charlton, Denis Law and Jack Rowley on United’s all-time list; 70 minutes 3-1.
Already on thin ice, van Persie deliberately tripped Bender as he broke free; de Gea caught Sam’s free kick with impudence. We brought on Ashley Young for the tired Kagawa. Three-one up, nearly twice as many completed passes as our opponents, sixty per cent possession, what was already a good night was about to get better. From a throw-in which threatened our area the ball went to Bender. Van Persie robbed him and under the pressure of a flying tackle released Young. Back to front, left to right, fast, sweeping, accurate, exciting; it was like the class of ninety-four. To Rooney in the middle, to Valencia on the right, two touches and an unerring drive. Three passes, ninety yards and not a thing the opposition could do to stop it. What conjuration and what mighty magic; 79 minutes 4-1.
It was a pity it had to end in anti-climax. Rio heard no call and was left with no option but to concede a corner. Can delivered it, a determined Reinartz headed it against the underside of the bar as de Gea flapped weakly and Toprak belted home the rebound amid a cluster of legs; 88 minutes 4-2. There was still time for Valencia, confidence flooded back, to engineer the restoration of a three goal margin. He flew once again up the right wing but van Persie selflessly decided to dilute Rooney’s earlier embarrassment by eclipsing the earlier miss, a feat which involved exceptional skill two yards in front of an empty net. No matter, a tactical European triumph is pleasing and satisfying but a stylish one, that is what we crave at the Theatre of the Beautiful Game. I could drive to Bristol believing that a corner has been turned. Welcome to United, David Moyes.
Paul Andrew James