Review: Roma 1 Manchester United 1
Lots of passing around the back four and central midfielders without any pressure or meaningful forward passing. Yup, another training exercise/champions league group match. With all the places in the group sorted out before kickoff, there was little point playing the game, except to give some of the younger players a run around. Wayne Rooney must have been really bored out there for 70 minutes.
Pique scored again for United, his second Champions League appearance and his second goal. Not bad for a defender. Mind you, if Roma had bothered to mark him he would have had a harder task than an open goal from 6 yards out. Roma equalised after 70 minutes with a very well taken goal from Mancini with Kuszczak had no chance with.
It it interesting to see this reserve type side develop. A few years ago, the youngsters were not close to the quality required, but tonight nearly all of them had a good game and if the first team wasn’t playing so well, some would be getting a regular game. It is no surprise that Wes Brown is playing so well with Danny Simpson waiting for him to make a mistake and take his place.
It was hard to pay 100% attention to the game, so I kept an eye on Rangers, who fell over and dropped out 3-0 to Lyon. At only 1-0 with about five minutes to go, they hit the bar. So close. Arsenal won, but still finished second. Can we draw either Arsenal or Liverpool in the 2nd Round? Would be a very interesting game.
Very bad news related to tonights game were the five United fans in hospital from stab wounds. Another very bad footballing incident in Italy. Will UEFA take action?
Popularity: 20% [?]
December 14th, 2007 at 2:11 am
Unlike what happened to English clubs in the 80s - Uefa will not take any action against Roma because the violence happened outside the stadium and away from their precious advertising hoardings - no collateral damage to their sponsors reputations was done. But that is the cynic in me speaking because I want action taken - Roma clearly have a major problem and they should not be allowed to host European matches until it is sorted out. Although the young tea played well and deserved the draw, Roma had nothing to play for and it looked like that in the first half.